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How To Flunk CS253

Sarcasm Alert

SARCASM!

Overview

It’s easy to fail CS253!

Anybody can do it!

We will discuss a few sure-fire methods, below.

Cheating

SARCASM! A great way to flunk this class is to cheat. Here’s how you do it:

• Share your design with others.
• Design jointly.
• Share your code with others.
• Code jointly.
• Give your code to someone who promises not to copy it.
• Post the assignment, or your code to the internet: pastebin, message boards, stack overflow, ❝tutoring❞ sites, etc.
  • They’re ungoogleable!

Don’t read the assignment

SARCASM! You were in class when I presented the assignment, so you’ve got a pretty good feeling for what it’s all about. Therefore:

• Don’t actually read the assignment before designing.
• Don’t read the assignment before coding.
• Don’t re-read the assignment when you’re done to make sure you got it right.
• Certainly don’t copy the essence of the writeup into your .cc file.
• Make especially sure to ignore the Requirements section.
  • I’m not serious about that part—maybe it should be called “Suggestions”.
  • It’s at the end, so it’s not important.

Guessing saves time

SARCASM! Sometimes, when you read something, the meaning isn’t clear to you. Don’t sweat it—it’s not important. Guessing will certainly tell you the right meaning.

• Don’t look up words in an online dictionary.
  • https://m-w.com is useless.
  • https://dictionary.com is even worse.
• Don’t ask for clarification in Teams—everybody will think that you’re dumb!
• Don’t ask the instructor via email to clarify—the instructor will think that you’re dumb!
• Don’t ask the instructor during office hours—that time is not for questions!

Memorization

SARCASM! I expect you to memorize not only the ENTIRE optional textbook, but also the parts of C++ that were created after the book was published.

Therefore, you have no need of these excellent on-line references:

• https://cplusplus.com
• https://cppreference.com

Don’t compile your code

SARCASM! Compiling is the TA’s job, not yours. Therefore:

• Don’t compile your code after each change.
  • Especially after a change that can’t break anything.
• Don’t compile your code as shown in the assignment.
• Compile your code on a completely different compiler than the one that the TA will use.
  • Compiling on a Macbook is perfect! Even though it’s a completely different compiler, you can be certain that you’ll get exactly the same results from it!
• Don’t actually use cmake—compile manually.
• Only -Wall is required, so don’t use anything but -Wall.

Don’t test your code

SARCASM! Testing is a waste of time, especially for you, the most brilliant programmer who ever lived. Besides, it’s depressing. Who wants to find bugs? Therefore:

• Don’t run your program with the data given in the assignment.
• Don’t run your program with the data that tests corner cases.
• Don’t run your program with the data that tests error cases.

Don’t test your packaging

SARCASM! Similarly, testing your packaging is a waste of time. Sure, the writeup says to create a CMakeLists.txt containing blah blah blah, but that’s only a suggestion. The TA has lots of spare time, and will figure out how you packaged your code. Also, if you left out a file, I’m sure that the TA will stop everything and send email to you requesting that file. Therefore, it would be a waste of time to:

• go into a empty directory
• unpack your tar file there
• type cmake . && make
• run the program

Office Hours

SARCASM!

• Going to the instructor’s office hours is for losers.
• It’s a sign of weakness.
• He has no candy.