Students are expected to be familiar with all of the information below. They should read it fully and carefully. Once they have done so, they should watch this video commentary (click on "syllabus"), where the instructor highlights the most important and distinctive elements in the syllabus they want to be sure students do not miss.
This course teaches students a principled approach to designing & implementing software so that it will be almost certainly correct, as well as easy to understand, easy to change, and modular. It aims to train students to have the core programming skills necessary to be successful as a professional programmer.
The course assumes knowledge of the Java programming language at the level covered in CSE 123; however, students will not program in Java in this course. Instead, Java mainly will be used as a point of comparison for the language that is used (TypeSript).
We expect to cover (at least) the following topics during the course:
The homework assignments are the core of the course content. Most of the student's time is spent on and most of the learning occurs while completing the homework assignments. As a result, the course schedule is organized around the homework assignments.
The complete schedule for one assignment is organized as follows, with each part usually occurring on the day(s) shown:
Lectures (Friday–Wednesday): Students attend three lectures that teach new material. They can ask questions about anything that is unclear either in person or via the Message Board.
Section (Thursday): Students get their first chance to test their understanding of the new material by working on problems in quiz section. After completing them, students can see the correct answers and identify any mistakes. This work is ungraded.
Assignment (Friday–Wednesday): Students demonstrate their understanding of the new material by working on problems similar to those from section, but this time, the work is graded.
Note that the lectures for the next assignment take place while students are working (on their own) on the current homework assignment. The current assignment is due on a Wednesday, and then the next day, Thursday, has the section component of the next assignment.
Lectures will be given in person, at the locations and times shown on the time schedule. The afternoon lecture will also be recorded for the benefit of students who are sick or otherwise unable to attend.
Each week includes a TA-led quiz section. As noted above, giving each student an ungraded attempt to work on problems is a core part of the course organization. As a result, students are expected to attend quiz section each week.
Students who are unable to be present in person will be allowed to complete the worksheet on their own and submit it in Gradescope by 5pm on Thursday. The solution to the worksheet will be posted at 5:30pm on Canvas. Students who submit on Gradescope are expected to compare their solution to the one posted and identify any mistakes on their own. They can ask questions on the Message Board about anything that is unclear.
If a student is completely unavailable on the day of a quiz section, they can contact the instructor or their section TA to make special arrangements.
If students do not attend section, do not submit a solution to the worksheet in Gradescope, and do not make special arrangements to submit later, then the staff will interpret that as a statement that the student is confident they can complete the homework on their own without any help from TAs, in particular, that they do not need one-on-one help in office hours. As a result, TAs will allocate their extremely limited time in office hours to students who do attend section or submit the worksheet on Gradescope. (Of course, students who skip section can still ask questions on the Message Board.)
Homework assignments will generally be posted late Thursday evening, so that students can start the assignment on Friday. As noted above, Thursdays are intended to be used for working on the section worksheet, reading the official solutions, and asking questions to clarify any issues that were unclear.
Assignments can require either solutions in the form of written answers or typed code or both. Generally, the amount of code required will increase as the course progresses.
Past experience tells us that some of the homework assignments in this course can be very time consuming for some students. Students should plan to have at least 6-8 hours available per week to work on assignments, with the expectation that some assignments could require even more time depending on the student's background.
Students are expected to complete all homework assignments. Students who receive no (or essentially no) credit for multiple assignments risk failing. Outside of those circumstances, however, failing the course is highly unusual.
Students can ask questions at any time on the message board. During normal working hours, they should receive a response within a fairly short period of time (almost always under an hour).
Each member of the course staff will have at least one office hour every week, where students can get one-on-one help. See the office hours page for times and locations.
Note, however, that office hours are the most limited resource available to students — those held near the due date of assignments are almost always oversubscribed — so asking questions on the Message Board should always be preferred.
As noted above, office hours will be reserved for students who either attended section or submitted a solution to the section worksheet in Gradescope the prior Thursday. Those who skip section can still ask questions on the Message Board, but one-on-one help in office hours is reserved for students who worked on the section problems as expected.
There will be a midterm exam held in class and a final exam during finals week. Note that the day and time of the final exam may not be the ones listed on the general UW final exam schedule. See the course calendar for the actual days and times.
See the exams page for more details on the exam content.
There is no required textbook for the course. However, students may find the articles linked on the Resources page useful to read at some point during the course.
Additionally, many students, early in their CS careers, find the following book helpful (although it will not be referenced much if at all during the course):
The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas, 20th anniversary (2nd) edition, Addison-Wesley, 2020.
In addition to in-person discussion, students and staff will communicate through the following online means:
If grading mistakes occur, students are encouraged to bring them to the attention of the course staff and see that they are corrected. They can do so by requesting a regrade in GradeScope, with the following caveats:
We will only entertain regrade requests for one week after the grades are initially are posted. In particular, students searching for extra points late in the quarter by requesting regrades of problems from early assignments will be ignored.
While regrades can (and should) be used to fix mistakes where a correct solution is mistakenly marked incorrect, they cannot (and should not) be used to request changes to amounts of points deducted for errors. Deductions are applied consistently to all students. We will not give one student a smaller deduction than others who made the same (or very similar) mistakes, so do not ask us to do so.
If students wish to fix an inconsistency between the grading of two assignments that had similar answers, both students must request a regrade. That way, the staff can determine whether the appropriate correction is to add points to the student with the lower score or remove them from the student with the higher score. If only the student who lost points requests a regrade, it will be ignored.
For the final assignment, HW9, the staff will not regrade individual parts. Students can request a regrade for the entire assignment, and their points may go up or down as a result.
Students should expect and demand to be treated with respect by their classmates and the course staff. All students belong here, and the staff is here to help them learn and enjoy a challenging course. If any incident occurs that challenges this commitment to a supportive and inclusive environment, students should let the staff know so the issue can be addressed.
Graders will identify incorrect answers in submitted solutions and deduct points commensurate with the severity of the errors made. They will aim to deduct points consistently across all assignments making the same or similar errors.
In addition, the course has the following policies:
Graders will ignore requests to change the amount of points deducted. These amounts, as long as they are applied consistently, are entirely at the discretion of the course staff.
Graders will ignore legalistic arguments about why incorrect solutions should be accepted under an alternative reading of the problem statement. Incorrect answers will be marked as such as long as the staff believes the intention of the problem statement was clear.
Talking to a staff member does not take away the student's responsibility to submit a correct answer. The staff will not accept incorrect answers due to a claim that some staff member said it was acceptable. Students sometimes misunderstand what TAs are trying to say, and in any case, it remains the students responsibility to make sure their understanding of the problem statements matches up with the plain meaning of the instructions given in the assignment or class.
See the grading page for further details on how overall course grades will be calculated.
Homework assignments are designed to be completed by the due dates listed. Situations may arise, however, where students are unable to complete the assignment by those dates. For that reason, the staff will allow students to submit assignments one day late with no penalty, provided that the following conditions are met:
Students use no more than one late day per assignment. A “day” means 24 hours from the original due date/time.
Students use no more than four late days total during the quarter.
Late work not meeting these conditions (i.e., more than 24 hours on one assignment or more than four assignments) will only be accepted after a discussion with course instructor. There is no need to talk to the instructor until all 4 late days have been used or more than one late day is needed on an individual assignment.
Students do not need to take any special action when submitting an assignment late. The course staff will note the late submission and keep track of how many late submissions have occurred.
In addition, please note that:
Anything more than a few minutes late is just as late as something submitted the next day.
Late days are intended to cover any emergencies that arise. We do not grant extra late days beyond the first four just for emergencies — those four are intended to cover emergencies.
Finishing an assignment one date late usually puts the student behind schedule for the next assignment.
The day after the assignment is due is intended to be focused on the section component of the next assignment. If a student is unable to fully concentrate on quiz section, then they go into the next assignment at a disadvantage. Hence, it is always to the students benefit to finish each assignment on time.
Students are allowed to discuss homework problems with others, but they must write or type their solution individually, without assistance.
Student solutions are not group work. Students can work together to solve problems, but then, they must leave the group, taking no written or electronic records of group work with them; wait at least 20 minutes; and then write up / code up their solution on their own, unassisted. Students who initially solve problems with a group, must list the other group members as "collaborators" in the written part of their solution.
This policy clearly precludes copying code off of the Internet. Hence, students should not consult the Internet for problems or key-phrases. This includes Google, Stack Overflow, reddit, and any other website. However, students may consult the internet for ideas, definitions, and understanding general concepts.
Each student should keep anything they plan to submit as a solution completely private. Under no circumstances should they give a copy of their code or written work to another student, as that would clearly violate the rules listed above.
AI tools such as GitHub Copilot or ChatGPT are clearly not allowed under the policy described above. While using Copilot is entirely reasonable on personal projects, it must be turned off when completing the assignments in this course.
Such tools have essentially memorized all the code on the Internet. Asking the tool to produce code from its memory is no different, as far as we are concerned, from searching for the code and then copying it yourself. We explicitly disallow the latter, so the former is also disallowed.
On the other hand, students are allowed to look at outside resources in order to build up their understanding and then use their understanding to solve the problem. It is understanding that will get students a job. (No one will pay someone just to type prompts into ChatGPT. They can do that themselves!) Hence, any technique that short circuits the process of building up understanding is adverse to a student's long-term career goals, and so we disallow it.
As noted above, the staff expects each student to write their own solutions, independently. Attempting to misrepresent another student's solution as their own would be unfair to the other students in the course and constitute academic misconduct in violation of the Allen School policy. Any such violation will be reported to University, and the instructors will make every attempt to ensure the harshest allowable penalty.
Note that, in cases where one student copies the solution of another, both students have violated the policy and both will be disciplined. Again, all students should keep their solutions private.
If a student is ever unclear about whether their discussions with other students went over the line, they should (a) ask and (b) describe their collaboration clearly on their assignment. If they do, the worst that will happen is losing some points. That is much better than the alternative.
Please refer to university policies regarding disability accommodations and religious accommodations.
Start assignments early. Aim to complete them the day before they are due. Assignments are often more difficult than expected, and students should also to leave time to make and correct mistakes.
Prefer the Message Board to office hours. Office hours get very busy, especially in the last 48 hours before assignments are due. (Yet another reason to start early is so that students can attend office hours that are less busy.) Even just before assignments are due, however, questions on the Message Board are usually answered within a short period of time.
Do not skip class to work on homework, not even late in the quarter when students are more tired and busy. Doing so often seems like it will save time in the short run, but it will cost time in the long run.
Think about which lecture material applies to that homework problem. As described above, each assignment is intended to apply ideas from lecture, so if it does not seem that any lectures apply to a given problem, it is nearly certain that the student did not understand some part of some lecture.
Focus on understanding, not on getting points. A student's understanding of the material, not the points they received, is what will get them a job and ensure a successful career as a programmer.