My Adventures with COSI TAs

Wrong Book on Reserve

The first written assignment in the class was given to us as a couple problems and a list of problems that were supposedly to be found in the textbook. The textbook was on reserve in the science library, and I'd ordered mine online and it hadn't arrived yet, so I went to the library and xeroxed a couple pages of their copy.

When my textbook arrived a week later--after I had turned in the problem set--I noticed a few difference between it and the one on reserve in the library, yet they were supposedly the same edition of the same book, with the same ISBN number(!!). I also noticed that one of the problems that I'd done was differently numbered in the two editions. This bothered me. I posted to the newsgroup about this to inform the TAs and prof of the problem (mentioning that I was concerned that I may have done the wrong problem), and a TA responded that the correct textbook was in the library, that it was our responsibilty to have the correct textbook, and that we could check with other classmates who had the correct textbook to make sure we did as well.

When I got my assignment back yet another week or two later, graded, I'd lost all the possible points on one problem (the one that was misnumbered), with a comment from the TA/grader saying I'd done the wrong problem. When I brought up the issue with the textbook in light of my grade and this comment, they said that I should redo the problem and submit it to them within 24 hours. I did this. Then they said that I was supposed to've just resubmitted the assignment, and they'd've graded the problem that I did as if it'd been the right one. I did this, and it worked out fine.

Assignment as a Word Document

In response to above incident, the TAs decided to scan the questions from the book and post the next assignment (PS2) on our class website. In Word Document format! WITH THE QUESTIONS AS IMAGES Ian found the assignment first, and was shocked into converting it to pdf and putting it in his personal webspace, forwarding the url to the entire newsgroup.

A few days later, the professor e-mailed Ian, CCing it to the TA, thanking him for posting the pdf, and asking the TA to copy the pdf over onto the class webpage, and to post all future assignments in pdf format. The copy of the assignment on the webpage remained in .doc format.

Wrong Version of the Java Compiler for Grading

written by Ian Adams

The TAs, in explaining the requirements for the programming assignment, explained that the submissions were to compile in the latest version of Java at Brandeis, namely, the one on all of the machines in the Berry Patch. We were warned that other machines, not physically located in the Berry Patch, might not have the correct version, but rather an earlier one.

Ian wrote code that compiled and ran on a Berry Patch machine, under the latest version of Java, and submitted it confident that there were no (major) bugs. A short while later, he recieved an email from one of the TAs, saying that his code didn't compile. He did include the compiler errors in the email, and by looking at them and the APIs of the versions of Java available at Brandeis, Ian concluded that the problem was that the compiler could not find methods only present in the later version of Java. He responded to the TA, asking where the TA had compiled, and that the code did indeed compile on a Berry Patch machine with the correct version of Java.

The TA confessed to having done the testing on a non-public machine, one which was not in the Berry Patch and one which had the earlier--rather than the correct--version of Java.