This assignment is due as soon as possible.
As your first task, please review the policies of the course, which are outlined in the syllabus. In particular, please review carefully the policies on academic conduct. After you have read over these policies, feel free to let us know if you have any questions.
Please use the link below to complete a short survey that is required of all students in the course.
The only required textbook is a coursepack containing all of the lecture notes. You can obtain it as a PDF here.
Throughout the coursepack, there are portions that you will need to fill in as you participate in the lectures. Therefore, we strongly encourage you to either:
download the PDF onto a tablet and mark it up there
or
purchase a printed version of the coursepack from Flashprint (99 Mt. Auburn Street, across from Peet’s Coffee). Flashprint will be printing them on demand, so they may not have one in stock when you get there. If you are willing to provide a credit-card number over the phone, you can call them in advance to place an order: 617-492-7767. The cost is $55.81 with tax.
In your work for this course, you’ll need to have access to a number of programming tools.
The steps needed to obtain and install these tools depend on the operating system that you’re using. Select the appropriate link below:
Once you have installed the software, we recommend that you test it by creating and running a simple program. Let us know if you encounter any issues in doing so.
We will be using Gradescope for homework submissions. To avoid any last-minute problems when submitting the first homework, you may want to practice submitting a file as follows:
Access the template that we have created by clicking on this link and signing into your Google account as needed.
When asked, click on the Make a copy button, which will save a copy of the template file to your Google Drive.
Select File->Rename, and change the name of the file to
ps0.
Feel free to add some text to your copy of the template, although doing so is not required for this exercise.
Choose File->Download->PDF document, and save the PDF file on
your machine. The resulting PDF file (ps0.pdf) is the one
that you will submit.
Login to Gradescope by clicking the following link:
If you don’t have a Gradescope account, you should create one now
using the link in the email from Gradescope that you should have
received. If you can’t find the email from Gradescope, send an
email to dgs@bu.edu.
Once you are in logged in, click on the box for CSCI S-111.
(Here again, if you don’t see that box, email
dgs@bu.edu ASAP and ask to be added to the course
on Gradescope.)
Click on the name Problem Set 0 in the list of assignments. You should see a pop-up window labeled Submit Assignment. (If you don’t see it, click the Submit or Resubmit button at the bottom of the page.)
Choose the Submit PDF option, and then click the Select PDF
button and find the ps0.pdf that you created above.
Then click the Upload PDF button.
You should see an outline that includes four problems along with thumbnails of the page(s) from your uploaded PDF. For each problem in the outline:
If this were an actual homework submission, you would click on the magnifying glass icon for each page and doublecheck that the pages that you see contain the work that you want us to grade.
Once you have assigned pages to all of the problems in the question outline, click the Submit button in the lower-right corner of the window.
You should see a box saying that your submission was successful.
Click the (x) button to close that box.
You can use the Resubmit button at the bottom of the page to resubmit your work as many times as needed before the final deadline.
Important
It is your responsibility to ensure that the correct version of a file is on Gradescope before the final deadline. We will not accept any file after the submission window for a given assignment has closed, so please check your submission carefully using the steps outlined above.
If you are unable to access Gradescope and there is enough
time to do so, wait an hour or two and then try again. If you
are unable to submit and it is close to the deadline, email
your homework before the deadline to
cscis111-staff@lists.fas.harvard.edu
We will be using Canvas for important announcements. To ensure that you are receive all announcements as soon as they are sent, you should do the following:
In addition, to help us learn your names, please add a photo to your Canvas account if you haven’t already done so:
Last updated on June 22, 2025.