General advice

• Read the csc108 newsgroup when you sit down to do an assignment. The question you are thinking of asking may already have been asked and answered.
• Anybody can post here, not just the TAs. To post to ut.cdf.csc108h, send mail to ut.cdfpc.csc108h or just click here.
• You are encouraged to POST QUESTIONS here, while you are working at the terminal. Don't wait a week until the next office hour or tutorial.
• Post answers (followups) to other posts too, if you are sure you know the answer.
• use netscape for general course information. The course home-page is at http://www.cs.utoronto.ca/~craig/csc108

GENERAL PROGRAMMING COMMENTS

• The program should begin with a brief explanation of what the program does, as a comment. Comments should be found wherever a program segment needs clarification. At this stage more comments are better that fewer. Comments are essential to your understanding of your own code.
• Program comments are necessary and variable names, even counted "for loop" indexes should be meaningful to a casual reader. These things are important for me to understand your work. Part of your mark will depend on program readability (and style).
• Programs that satisfy the specifications of assignments will be quite short and should be short. If your program is getting too long then you should rethink what the assignment is asking you to do.
• Making assumptions while writing the program is okay as long as you don't compromise what was required in the assignment. Reasonable assumptions are frequently necessary and should be included explicitly in the program's comments. They will add to your understanding of the code as well.
• As you write the program think about what tests are needed to check your program. Really look at the output and check it adding written comments. Include a reasoned and reasonable number of tests runs. More than one and less than a thousand :)
• Don't get pathological with exceptions but try to grasp the context and purpose of the exercise. Don't add "Bells and Whistles" until you are sure you have met the specifications of the assignment.