CIS 1100 Style Rubric

This page outlines the style rubric we look at when grading your homework assignment so that you can quickly refresh yourself on things to do when writing code. Note that this is NOT a general outline of why style is important or why a specific style error is considered in error. You can read more about that on the Style Guide resource page.

Note: We do not list how many points these deductions are worth. This is because the point weighting varies from assignment to assignment.

Overall Errors

These two style errors don’t follow a specific category and usually indicate more significant issues in the submission:

Incomplete Assignment. (Style points are only awarded for complete assignments)
Code did not compile, TA fixed errors and resubmitted.

Checkstyle Errors

There are two types of Checkstyle errors, one for the number of checkstyle errors, and one for the number of Checkstyle error types.

These two types of deductions are independent.

Number of Checkstyle Errors

More than 3 checkstyle errors
Less than 3 checkstyle errors

Number of Checkstyle Error Types

More than 3 types of checkstyle errors
Less than 3 types of checkstyle errors

Indentation Errors

Severely incorrect indentation errors that makes the code hard to read
Minor incorrect indentation

Class Header Errors

Missing or incorrect class header comment(s) with name and PennKey
Class header contains PennID instead of PennKey
Class header has no/incorrect program description (compounds with not having a header at all)
Class header has no/incorrect program execution (compounds with not having a header at all)

Variable Naming and Declaration Errors

Declaring and initializing variables on separate lines. Whenever feasible, this should be done on the same line.
Variable names are not descriptive
Variable names are not camelCase (except for constants, which should be ALL_CAPS_WITH_UNDERSCORES)

Commenting Errors

No commenting where it would be useful
Too many comments where it is not useful
Comments are below the code they reference
TODO comments left in code when that TODO was completed. These should be replaceed by your own comments as you fill in your code.
Commented out code left in your submission

If Statement and Loop Errors

Single line if statement or loop statement without brackets.
Uses a while loop where a for loop would work just as well.
Conditional check in the form of if (booleanExpression == true) {} - since the variable is a boolean already, you don’t need to compare it to true.
If statement to the effect of
```
if (x == y) {
    return true;
} else {
    return false;
}
```
Instead of evaluating the conditional, we can just use it directly since it already results in a boolean. For the example provded above, we could rewrite it as just:
```
return x == y;
```

Inefficiency Errors

Obvious code innefficiency
Overly complicated logic
Unnecessary print statements

Spacing Errors

Inconsistent brackets (sometimes same line, sometimes next line)
Unnecessary spacing
Inconsistent spacing
No spacing at all (i.e. no blank lines between code)