Guidelines

Individual Work Policy

Students in this course are allowed to submit homework assignments in PAIRS.  At the same time, each pair must work on its own. If you are not sure what is the difference between cooperation and cheating, ASK.

Programming style

In both HDL and Java programming, you should follow Java programming conventions and style (variable names, indentation, etc.).  Documentation should be brief and to the point.  Messy, unmodular, under-documented, or over-documented works will get points penalties.

What to submit 

• Hardware projects: Submit only the *.hdl files that you wrote.

• Assembly projects:  Sumit both your  *.asm and *.prg files.

• Software projects: Submit only the *.java files that you wrote.  Do not submit any *.class or other project files.

How to submit 

Each project should be submitted as follows:

• Electronic:  All the source files that make up your project, in one file named projNUMBER.tar (proj1.tar,proj2.tar,...).  This tar file should be submitted via course admin accessed through the Administratives page.

Important:  Your electronic submissions should include NOTHING ELSE except for the source files that you wrote, and a README file (in capital letters).

README submission

The README file should contain the following:  

DATE/TIME:                must be on or before the homework submission deadline

SUBJECT:                  (project name)

PERSONAL INFO:     The details of the two students who participated in the project.
                                     For each student, list student name, ID, and email.

DETAILS:                    Any details you want to tell us about you implementation

What if you can't finish the project on time?

Relax.  All the projects in this course are highly modular, with incremental test files.  Each hardware project consists of many chip modules (*.hdl programs), and each software project consists of many software modules (methods).   It is best to treat each project as a modular "problems set", and try to work out as many problems as you can. You will get partial credit for your work.   

What if your chip or program is not working?

It's not the end of the world.  Hand in whatever you did, and explain what works and what doesn't.  If you want, you can also supply test files that you developed, to demonstrate working and non-working parts of your project.  Instead of trying to hide the problem, be explicit and clear about it.  You will get partial credit for your work.

"Errors are the portals of discovery" (James Joyce)