TAs will NOT fix your code. That’s your job. TAs’ job is to point you to the right direction.
Do your part. BEFORE asking for help:
Re-read the homework instruction carefully
Draw diagrams to understand the overall architecture
Insert print statements into various places to debug your code
Search through the past listserv postings
Read man pages for the functions and commands that you’re using
When asking for help, make your questions as specific as possible. Telling TAs “my code doesn’t work” doesn’t give enough information. Good debugging questions usually include a concise description of the following information:
Expecation: “I expect my code to do …”
Observation: “Instead it does …”
Hypothesis: “I think the problem might be that …”
Experiment: “I’ve tried the following to fix/narrow down the problem…”
Please be respectful to TAs and other students, especially right before a deadline or a test. Everyone is just as busy as you are.
Make sure your email subject reflects your message content:
Please write a full subject, and write more than just bracket-enclosed
tags, e.g. [HW1] [part2] Writing helper functions rather than
[HW1] [part2].
Do NOT hijack a thread: i.e. reply to a thread with an unrelated topic. Start a new thread.
Sometimes a thread discussion moves to a different topic. Change the subject in this case.
No need to write [cs4995]. This subject tag will be automatically
added to emails sent to the listserv.
Do NOT reply to an ANN message. The [ANN] tag bypasses many
students’ email filters. We reserve it for emails that require the entire
class’s attention.
Do NOT send your code to the public listserv. Ask specific questions, and if you must include a code snippet, reduce it to the minimal amount to illustrate the concept you are asking about.
Please help each other out, but do NOT give out answers. Try to, like a TA might, suggest ideas or strategies that were helpful for you when figuring out the problem.
You are of course encouraged to ask questions and post interesting things
that are beyond the scope of the course. In this case, however, you can add
[OT] to your subject to signal that this thread is off-topic, to help
those students who want to focus only on the relevant course materials.
Include the [LFG] tag in the subject if you are looking for other group
members.