Help

How YPDSA works

YPDSA is Prof. Pisan's tutor for CSS 342 and 343. It knows the lectures, slides, and textbook for both courses, and it answers in his voice and with his examples. It is here to help you learn the material, not to do the course for you.

What you can do

• Ask about any topic in your own words. When the answer is on a slide, the slide opens next to the chat (on a phone, tap 📽 Slides).
• Get feedback on code. Press </>, paste your C++ (or photograph handwritten code on a phone), and it tells you what is wrong and where to look. Before it grades, it asks what score you expect.
• Practice. Ask for an exercise on a topic, or say "quiz me on recursion".
• Prepare for an exam. Ask it to trace an algorithm with you, to let you try each step, or to explain why an answer is wrong.
• Hear it. When the voice is on, the 🔊 button under a reply reads it aloud in Prof. Pisan's voice.

What it will not do, and why

• It will not write your homework solution. It gives one hint at a time: first the idea, then where to look, then a leading question. If you push for the full answer it holds where it is and says why.
• Sometimes, before going deeper, it asks two or three quick questions on the topic that comes before. Answer them (or say "not now") and it continues.
• It can be wrong. Check anything important against the lecture or the book.

Asking good questions

• Paste the exact error message or the failing test, not a description of it.
• Say what you tried and what you expected to happen.
• One question at a time. Name the lecture or assignment if it matters.
• Want to think it through yourself? Say "let me try each step".

Getting around

• 💬 Chat: the tutor. 💡 shows suggested questions. The course and lecture menus in the header pick which slides you see.
• 🗺 Map: every topic in the course, what you have covered, and what comes next, with links to the slide and the book section.
• 🎓 Lectures: the slide decks with narration.
• 🔁 Review: short retrieval practice on things you learned earlier, timed so they stick. It appears in the sidebar when something is due.
• 📖 Book: the course text. 🧭 Order: optional; changes the order topics are suggested in.

Your data

Your questions, code, and progress are recorded to run the tutor and to improve it for future students. If your instructor uses YPDSA for your class, they can see how you are using it — how often, which topics, how the exercises went — and read your conversations for that class. How you use the site is recorded too: which pages, slides, and lectures you open, and for how long. It is a learning tool: it is not used to grade you, and your data is never sold or shared outside the course. Identifiable records are kept for up to one year, then anonymized. To request deletion, email pisan@uw.edu. The full notice is on the course site.

Something wrong?

Press 👎 under the reply and say what was off; Prof. Pisan reads those. For anything else, email pisan@uw.edu.