Assignment Instructions

Assignment Instructions#

Important

These instructions are for a previous course and need to be updated. Check back after the first week of class.

Assignments will be distributed in two stages, announced through the course management tools.

TL;DR#

  1. Implement your solutions in the files:

    • phys-581/assignments/assignment_X.py

  2. Make sure all tests pass:

    anaconda-project run shell    # Not needed in your CoCalc project
pytest                        # Runs your tests
pytest -k test_official_assignment_X --no-cov

  3. Commit your solution, tag with assignment_X:v1 and push.

    git add phys-581/assignments/assignment_X.py
git add tests/               # If you have made and new tests.
git commit
git tag assignment_X:v1
git push

Stage 1#

For the first stage of assignment X, you will fetch the main branch of the [Official Course Repository] and merge this into your repository. This will contain the assignment definition, formally specified as a set of skeleton functions in the file src/phys_581/assignments/assignment_X.py.

In addition, the main branch will contain files tests/assignment_X/test_official_assignment_X.py demonstrating the desired behavior of your functions.

You must edit the skeleton functions in src/phys_581/assignments/assignment_X.py to make these tests pass. As you do this, you should consider whether any parts of your solution might be helpful with other problems, and try to refactor these into more general tools that you keep in the phys_581 package for use in other assignments and in your future work.

Although you are not permitted to edit the test_official_assignment_X.py files, you are encouraged to add additional tests to the tests/assignment_X/ folder, thoroughly testing your implementation of the solution in preparation for the second stage.

Push your solution to your [GitLab] project, ensuring that the CI tests run, and the corresponding assignment badge indicates success.

Once you are happy, tag your final revision assignment_X:v1. This will be your first submission, and must be completed before the specified assignment due date. You must keep this revision with the appropriate date-stamp to get credit. Successful on-time completion of this stage will be considered for partial credit, and completing a sufficient number of assignments at level will ensure that you get at least an A- in the course.

Stage 2#

After the due date, the second stage wiil begin. An additional branch will be pushed to your project with more comprehensive tests added to tests/assignment_X/test_official_assignment_X.py. These new tests will attempt to break your code by looking for edge cases, testing performance, memory usage etc. If you have properly tested your code, then these tests should pass, and you should be proud (and may receive additional bonus points). Otherwise you will need to investigate to see which tests cause your code to fail, and then to implement improvements in your code to get the tests passing again.

Once you are happy, tag your final revision assignment_X:v2. This will be your final submission. It will be due before the last week of class.

Notes#

Ultimately, you will have access to all of the tests: it is therefore possible to “game” the automated system by writing stubs that make the specific test-cases pass. This strategy can be very useful as part of what is called Test-Driven Development (TDD) and is encouraged, however, must not be used as part of your final submission.

Some of your code will be selected for randomized code review. If such stubs are found in your final tagged submissions it will considered a form of cheating. To be safe, write your own tests with different input parameters etc. which will form the basis of such a TDD strategy.

Contents