The Return of the Course?

  • Not sure where to start. Maybe this link?
  • Another thought: we've all been told what not to do, how to protect yourself and others from covid-19, especially in official communications from the college. What I suggest is to, whatever extent possible, keep up a sense of community with everyone at Vassar. Particularly with those you've been in contact with before Spring Break. Of course, you will want to do this with your other friends, and family too. My way to suggest that we all find ways and build routines to stay mentally, and physically, healthy.
  • back to course work, Perhaps it is best to talk about the midterm first… below is the exam and some notes.
  • Before looking at the answers, take a look at the original exam, specifically questions requiring code (question 2 for example.)
  • If you do not have confidence in the answers you wrote in the midterm exam, here's my recommendation: take however much time is necessary and write code to get the right answer.
    • For example, with question 2: perhaps copy the original code that formed the basis of the question into BlueJ and run the code first, using the debugger if necessary to be sure you understand it. Then write code for the answer and get it to work…
    • An unexpectedly large share of students did not understand the “toString()” method or how to use it.
      • Consider toString() as a helper method for printing output. It will always return a String object and should not print anything directly.
    • Within a switch code block, the absence of a break statement causes the next statement to be executed. There was a break statement missing somewhere in question 4.
    • I was hoping everyone understood the three pillars. Specifically: encapsulation (and data hiding) such that code should not access data fields outside of a class. This means that an instance of the class (i.e. an object) should not access data members directly. Passing a matrix object as a parameter to a method (say, add()) is not a good idea if data fields need to be accessed directly. The reasoning: They could be updated directly too.
      • The best way to ensure encapsulation is to make data fields “private.”
    • One other thought about the toString() method: I hope you can see how object oriented code can be wonderfully simple. For example, consider the last set of questions in the exam and the Wallet class. Wallet's toString() method pretty much just needed to call Cash's toString() method. Any calculations for ones, fives, and tens is already handled there.
I'm not sure how many students know - that mote is still accessible
  • You can use ssh to access the linux server:
    • ssh -p 443 mvassar@mote.cs.vassar.edu
  • There are other ways, including the app X2Go. For more information:
update

I'm trying to find a way to upload the recorded lecture. I'm currently unable to upload a video file to the wiki page.

  • sent via email