1. Neither I nor the TA will answer these e-mails in general. Period. I do not have the time, and my time is spent more productively for the class's sake in different ways. For pertinent questions on the materials that students send me by e-mail, or for questions that many people seem to be having, I will try to address them in class.

2. If you have a burning question I have not addressed, come see me during my office hours, or make an appointment if you need to.

   Many students do this already, and it is a good use of my time and theirs. I can usually answer a question a student asks in person in about a tenth the time than by an e-mail exchange. This is because writing it out takes much longer. Also, 80% of the questions people send me, I have no idea what they are asking. We would have to go back and forth by e-mail several times before I get to the bottom of it.

3. If you have a question on the project or on using DB2, you should consult with the TA first (remember that the TA will mark your projects).

4. For personal requests, such as "I cannot make the test", and so forth, e-mail is fine and I will attempt to answer you directly.

So I do not mind students sending questions by e-mail. By all means, continue. Just do not necessarily expect a direct reply. I do read them, and mostly I try to address the issues and questions people have raised. If your question or issue remains after some time, let me know. For anyone who believes that I am purposely ignoring them, my apologies.

The following is e-mail etiquette that I request from the students. It is common sense for the most part, but I find is not often observed by those sending me e-mail questions, for the most part.

1. If you have a question on the course materials, put some effort into stating it clearly and precisely. Most of the questions I receive are too vague for me to even begin to try to answer.

2. Do not ask questions for which it is obvious I would need to type an eight-page response. This is unreasonable. Such general questions will have to be addressed in class or in office hours.

3. Do not ask specific questions like "How do I do homework problem X?" or "What is the the answer to homework problem X?" I get plenty of these types of questions, believe it or not. I blow these off, believe it or not.

4. Don't try to hoist off large amounts of work or debugging on me (or anyone else, for that matter) to avoid small effort on your part. This is really annoying and only serves to make me mad. Really.

   I get many questions like "DB2 rejected this statement. Why?", especially during the course of the project. Often, the problem is a simple syntax mistake embedded in eighteen lines of SQL code (which, often, the asker has not bothered even to format into reasonably human readable form). It still takes me a few minutes first to get the context (which the sender already has, since it is his or her project), before I can begin to track down the bug. Yes, programming and SQL is demanding. That is one reason why C.S. is hard.

   When I do not believe the person has put any reasonable effort into this his or herself, I often blow the question off. This is not my job, it is yours.

   If the problem is weird or unusual and really has you stumped, then yes, I will try to help. I do recognize it is not always clear which category your bug falls under. That is okay.

5. Please do not to ask me questions that we specifically covered in class, or for which the answers are specifically spelled out in the book. I do expect that people make reasonable attempts to read the materials, and, while I do not require attendance, I hold people responsible for what is discussed in class.

   The questions people send me ought to be a last resort. Try on your own first to resolve the question. This is universally expected of university students. (And of employees!) I do get annoyed (as do most bosses) when it seems obvious to me the person has not put any thought into figuring it out him or herself. In other words, put some effort into it first.

   Meanwhile, it is perfectly fine to ask questions during class. Feel free to take advantage of this.

6. Show some courtesy and be reasonably polite in your e-mail. For the most part, people are. And I try to be, in turn. (You are welcome to let me know whenever I lapse in this.) However I do get quite a few e-mails that are notable exceptions to this. When people are rude, I blow them off as a general rule.

Thanks.