Show Lecture.HowToFlunk as a slide show.
How To Flunk CS253
Sarcasm Alert
Overview
It’s easy to fail CS253!
Anybody can do it!
We will discuss a few sure-fire methods, below.
Cheating
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.
Don’t read the assignment
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.
Don’t compile your code
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! It’s not really
g++!
- Each assignment, at least one student gets a zero though their
code compiled perfectly … on a Macbook.
- Don’t actually use your
Makefile—compile manually.
Your Makefile doesn’t have to work.
- Only
-Wall is required, so don’t use anything but -Wall.
Don’t test your code
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
Similarly, testing your packaging is a waste of time. Sure, the writeup
says to create a Makefile 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
make
- run the program
Office Hours
- Going to the instructor’s office hours is for losers.
- It’s a sign of weakness.
- He has no candy.
