Attendance

• If I am here, you should be too-- please make every effort to come to every class meeting.
• If you can't attend a class, get the notes from someone; I do not distribute my own, other than what I post on the class Web page.
• Please make every effort to arrive on time-- it is very distracting to have students wander in once the class has begun
• Please make sure all cell phones and other instruments of audio destruction are silenced

Assignments

• In a nutshell-- DO THEM! The assignments should be one of the course's attractions.
• I expect most of you will be coding using GLUT/OpenGL under CodeBlocks. If so, please send the .cbp file (the CodeBlocks project file) as well. Feel free however to use a different compiler/IDE.
• All assignments are to be submitted via email
• Assignment submissions must contain all files necessary for me to build and execute your submission. This includes all sources, include files, and data files).
• Although I know you think you're the center of my existence for the semester (and it would be wonderful were that the case) I do have other students, courses, and even a life outside my role as computer science superhero. As such, it is difficult for me to recall every dialog or bug exchange I have with every student. Therefore, each time you email me a question, or even a follow-up to an existing exchange we are having:
  • please retain the text of any previous emails in your current message – I do not want to have to go into my mailboxes and start searching for the previous emails to see what you're talking about.
  • please reattach all relevant files to the question at hand, even if you originally attached them to the first email of the exchange – I do not want to have to go back into my mailboxes and start selecting files from the previous messages in order to build your program; futhermore, I may accidentally select an earlier version of one of the files which would prevent me from reproducing the problem.
  Bluntly put, the idea is – to minimize my effort in resolving your problem – after all it is YOUR problem, I'm simply helping you – you do the brunt of the work. :)
• If you want me sympathetic to your cause, you must show that your cause is worthy of sympathy. Emailing me for the first time the night before a deadline with requests for help getting started indicates that you are not taking the assignments seriously. Start your assignments early and contact me early with questions or requests for assistance.
• Similarly, the time to tell me you have a problem with the material, assignments, attendance, or anything else is BEFORE the exam, not after it.
• The assignments will have due dates. If you will be late, so be it; but make sure you let me know that BEFORE the deadline-- not the day of, or the day after. If you have a nearly finished assignment, submit it by the deadline and then submit the finished product later. If you haven't contacted me at all about problems you are having with the assignment, and are tempted to submit a thrown-together piece of code on the day of the deadline, DON'T.
• Saving your work: Bad things happen to good people – despite you're having submitted labs and assignments, you should keep copies of your work until the end of the semester – messages disappear into SPAM folders, get deleted accidentally, whatever. Furthemore, you'll need some means of saving the work you do in 214NE. The easiest solution is a flash drive; some students mail themselves their work before leaving. Don't rely on any material saved on those machines being there next time &ndash others use that machine and there is occasional maintenance.

Exams

• They're like taxes and the dentist-- no one likes them, but they're unavoidable. The final will be cumulative, with emphasis on any material covered since the midterm.
• Don't be absent from the exams. Strange and weird things happen if you are.

Email, Office Hours, and Other Contact

• Althoug I will eventually learn who each of you are, it's unlikely I will also associate your email address with the course and person. Furthermore, it is very easy for me to overlook your email in the blizzard of messages I receive on a daily basis. As such, I will ask you to follow some conventions when communicating with me:
  • ALL course-related email MUST have a subject header that begins with *** CIS 3620 ***.
    • I will not respond to course-related mail that does not follow this convention, beyond telling you to resend it properly.
    • I will also be posting on the Assignments home page additional information to include on the subject line of an assignment submission.
  • Regardless of your email address, please include your full name in the body of the email.
• Please make sure your email address registered with the Brooklyn College Portal is correct and up to date-- I use that information to create my mailing lists, and inform you of any news of importance regarding the course. If the address you entered on the BC Portal is not one you check on a regular basis, I strongly urge you to consider changing it to one that you check regularly.
• For your own sakes (as well as mine), please refrain from using 'cute' or otherwise inappropriate email addresses for your college (and most certainly for your professional) correspondence.
• It is most advisable that your email address be indicative of who you are-- faulty cannot be expected to associate you with BigManOnCampus@gmail.com.
• Office hours-- a typical student's greatest wasted opportunity. This is here is a chance to get free consulting. Not enough of you will take advantage of it-- don't be among those.
• I have posted an AIM screen name on my top level Web page-- feel free to use it, but remember-- while that makes me your buddy, I'm NOT your buddy.