Comments for Week of March 22, 2004


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Comments for Week of March 22, 2004

How was HW4?
How goes Lab5?
Questions on the upcoming midterm exam and take home exam?

Okay, homework 4 was almost impossible. I mean, I got it done, but it took forever. I don't feel like I learned anything from doing it, and I don't know if I could do it again if I tried. I thought we were supposed to be understanding and therefore appreciating the work of computer scientists. I don't feel very appreciative because I don't understand. Frankly, I feel inferior.

I am sorry that you feel that way. Feel free to stop by and I'd be glad to go over your code with you. You DO need to understand HW4, because (hint, hint) Take Home Exam 2 will likely be similar. Mark Guzdial

FYI: For all who suspect that HW4 is the work of the devil, do consider Homework 4 from Fall 2003 and even HW4 from Spring 2003. You'll see that we've given a variation of this assignment every term, every term people have done okay on it (see the Questions page connected to each), and it's not at all "out of line." Mark Guzdial

Moved the midterm discussion to Comments for Week of March 15, 2004.
Midterm is this Friday. It's not changing.

Our TAs are ever so wonderful ; )
Yes they are. All the people complaining about HW 4 obviously didn't contact their TAs. My TA helped me work through the mistakes I had made. TAs are your friends...fish are friends, not food

The TAs are fantastic! Is there any way that we could let them know that at a possible TA led midterm review (hint)?! :) I know I would love to have a review. And every seat was filled at the last one!

Please make it before Thursday night though :)

Please have a review session. I don't even care if it is Thursday night. Thanks

I have a question here. Why is it so important to have a TA-led-review session before Thursday night when...EVERYONE HAS BREAKOUT SCHEDULED BEFORE THURSDAY NIGHT! And doesn't EVERY Breakout have 20-30 minutes for open Questions and Answers? Why not just ask your Midterm Exam Review questions AT BREAKOUT! (Maybe I'm just missing something obvious, like it's gauche to show up for breakout?) Mark Guzdial

Not only that, but many TAs complain that they don't get much traffic at their office hours. Any TA is willing to help you at their office hours, even if you aren't in their section. Take advantage of that if you have questions. Student549

Because some of us have a review on Friday at 9 am, and we spend the entire night before pinning up our work, so thursday night is a bad one, and about the TA's, I have emailed mine twice...and haven't recieved anything from him yet.

I understand the pressures of a review in Architecture, but that doesn't answer why questions can't be asked in breakout. If your TA isn't responding to you, (a) let me know via email the name of the TA and (b) contact ANY OTHER TA. They're all happy to help. Mark Guzdial

I think the reason people are asking about a review session is because the question was asked in lecture if there would be one and we were encouraged by the professor to ask for one here and let it be known we liked it last time. I promise, if it had been known there would be such an aversion to it, it wouldn't have been brought up. I don't know about others but it's not an excuse to not show up to breakout, I don't think that's what everyone is thinking (I hope not!).

Yes a review session sometime this week would be nice. The different thing about review sessions and breakout is that whatever we don't finish reviewing in breakout-the review session gives us one more scheduled opportunity to ask questions. I know we can ask our TA's, but when the room has 4-8 TA's available-then when one TA has difficulty explaining something, another TA usually has an easier/more understandable explanation.

I don't think that we can go over the review and all the questions that people have in the extra 20 min in breakout...that's why an extra review session would be helpful...so that everyone can get their questions answered without rushing through everything. The review is pretty long..20 questions, each with it's own parts...and I doubt that we could cover everyone's questions during breakout.

I certainly wasn't thinking it was going to be a way out of breakout...the thing about going to a tas office hours versus a review session is that even if you write down questions to see a ta about, in the group review, someone is bound to ask a question you didn't think about and if there are more tas, then that means there's a higher probability of someone being able to answer questions in the way that you understand best...so for those of us who have attended EVERY lecture and EVERY breakout, done EVERY assignment and read exactly what we were supposed to, no, we are not trying to find a way out of breakout. Just to let all the profs/tas know, we're not trying to cheat ourselves out of actual work! : )

one more vote for a review session...again, this is coming from a person who has been to EVERY SINGLE LECTURE AND BREAKOUT. The more you have someone explain things to you, the easier it is to retain. And yeah, breakout just isn't long enough to go through the whole review.

I feel the same way. At the last review session many people asked questions that I never even thought to ask. Hearing these questions and the answers to them helped me a ton! Also, all of the TA's really do explain things differently, so if it was explained in a way I didn't understand, there was always someone who could explain it so that everything was clear. I've also been to every lecture and every break out, but I'm still having problems. It would be extremely helpful to have another review session.

Ditto here. I'm the one who posted asking for the review in the first place, and I HAVE attended every lecture and breakout.

The TA's are trying to organize two review sessions: One for Wed. at 8 pm and another Thursday at 8:30 pm. We'll let you know if and when we can book rooms. Mark Guzdial

woohoo!

yay!!!

Thanks!

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where in the mid-term 2 was the new problem added?

thank you ever so much

Midterm Review 2 got a new problem right at the top, on Form Letters. Mark Guzdial

Okay: So I have been working on LAB5, and it seems somewhat disorganized. By the time problem 12 comes around we have added MULTIPLE columns. In problem 12 it tells us to SORT ONLY the originial columns, but WE CANNOT DO THIS WITH ALL THE NEW COLUMNS WE HAVE ADDED. If you try to highlight only the original cells that were provided to try to sort them THIS DOES NOT WORK, and ERROR pops up saying, "The command you choose cannot be performed with multiple selections. Select a single range and click the command again". So basically I cannot continue on with this assignment because I need to keep my spreadsheet AS IS so that it can be graded. I am not sure what to do... can anyone help??

Thanks!
Student954

Folks have asked me to talk about the range of difficulty on Sp2004 Midterm 2 Review.

Form Letter: The problem I just added last night. It's like what you can expect on the midterm.
Short Essay: Just like what you can expect.
What's the underlying representation?: Ditto
Internet Questions: Ditto
HTML Questions: Also ditto.
Sound Timing: Very ditto. If we gave you something like this, we'd give you code, too.
What do the programs do?: Ditto ditto.
Re-mixing the recipe: Direct copy from past Midterm #2. Ditto.
Encoding and Decoding: Copy-paste from last year's Midterm #2. Ditto.
Count 'em up: I like this problem – ditto. You should be able to do things like compute the percentage of A's in the string, too.
Gendered random sentences: Copy-paste from another term's Midterm #2. Ditto.
The Rainfall Problem: We did this in Sp2003 Midterm #2, and it was too hard. So this is at the high end – if I gave a problem like this again, it would be easier.
Graphics from a List: Hard problem, harder than I'd actually give on the midterm. Solution is in the book.
The Cover-Up: Fun problem. I'd give more examples (like of file.read() and file.replace()), but it's like what you can expect.
Address Book Functions: Copy-paste from previous term's Midterm #2. Problems like this can be expected.
Reverse a file: This is actually quite an easy problem: Read the file using file.readLines(), list.reverse(), then write the list back out to the new file.
Mirroring, Generalized: The sound version of this is actually in the book. The string version is a little harder than I'd put on the midterm, but it's a good exercise.
Rewrite the splice: (a) is directly what we had on last term's Midterm #2. Like what you can expect.
Re-splicing the splice: Splicing is a little harder than I expect you to do without a computer, but you should be able to understand it and do things like this, like the Sound Timing problem.
Making sounds to order: We actually didn't get to additive sound synthesis this term, so this problem wouldn't be on the midterm.

Mark Guzdial

Thanks for letting us know Prof. Guzdial!

Yeah, thanks for the insight into Midterm 2 Prof. Guzdial. Also, this is probably a stupid question but are the two review sessions going to be over the same material or is it like a two part review? I'm assuming you just go to one.

why do you want us to save lab 5 as lab 3?

Typo. Save it as Lab 5. Mark Guzdial

We have no pre-arranged plan for the review sessions. TA's will probably just show and walk through the review problems and take questions. Mark Guzdial

I have a general question about studying. So, in order to study, I am running the midterm programs in JES, but nothing is working! Like, I will put the programs in, such as the foo(abracadabra) problem and the form letter... and I get back nothing. What am I doing wrong?

Ex. I copy and pasted the code def form letter.... so on in the top part.
Then, saved and loaded.
Then, put the command in the bottom..... and NOTHING happened!?!!? Am I over looking something small and dumb? Please help!

when is the review session? thanks...

There will be two midterm 2 review sessions:
Session 1: 8:00PM WeREMOVEDsday the 24th hosted by Adam REMOVED and Stephanie Wietzel
Session 2: 8:30PM Thursday the 25th hosted by Ryan and Chris McGarty

I can't understand why you're getting nothing displayed when you type in the foo function. In the case of the form letter, nothing will appear to happen, because it is writing everything to a file. Bring your example to one of the review sessions. Times are at the top of every page. Colin Potts

Mever mind... I got it figured out! Thanks!

If this is where we comment - I just want to say that the sheer number of programs we have been given to review for this midterm is utterly overwhelming. And, there's many problems and several programs per problem. Why aren't we spending more time programming during the class - or given these during the class as our own "review" problems to do (if we choose to) after each applicable section - to work out instead of the week of the exam? This is not meant to be inflammatory, it's a comment/suggestion. Thx

Please see the lectures in the first week where I suggest doing two of the programs from lecture EACH WEEK. Mark Guzdial

How long are the review sessions going to be?

I'm going through the readings and I'm a little confused about one of the recipes...on page 170, I can't trace through the program past the first for loop...does anyone wish to explain recipe 55? Thanks!
Student1192

I'm scared of the Midterm!!! :(

this midterm is BLAZING! can we make this one open notes/book, or something? It's hard to remember everything I programmed/read for this class, even with the reviews. Also, how many problems will be on the midterm? let us know! (again, please consider the open notes/book question please!!!)
thanx

Yeah, I'm a good student and this midterm is definately making me sick (literally). I didn't do so hot in the first one (70), but my other HW, Lab, etc. grades are good—I'm scared for what Friday afternoon will bring :(

it would be a better idea to post that question on the lab 5 page...

I'm a little confused with the code on (recipe 44) pg 127...it has "src" in there, but it isn't in the for loops and it's never set to anything...so how does JES know what "src" is? I know that it isn't something preprogrammed...anyone care to explain? Thank you.

It would be very helpful if you could narrow down the questions on the review and give us some hints on which one's we can expect to be on the exam because there are way too many on there and it's very hard to remember what to do on each one.

Y'all... just study! Yes, the midterm is long... just do it!

I DID that above, listing which are the most important review questions! And on the Announcements page! Mark Guzdial

Is there anyway that we can access the questions and answers to the fall midterm for another review/study tool?

Go to Student10 and see past terms' Reviews. Mark Guzdial

I think the concept of an exam in a ocmputer science class is rather silly considering the fact that never will someone absolutely have to program something on paper without ever being able to work with a computer; the computer, as well as the all-too-familiar process of trial and error, is a very crucial part of being a programmer, and I just feel that having an exam that is rather heavily weighed (meaning it could go a long way to determine a student's grade) does little to show what a student hs learned in this course, meaning the grade could in fact be a poor reflection of progress. Not always, but sometimes. It's stressful.

STOP WHINING. Start studying. I don't understand this stuff very well, either, but if you waste your time whining, you'll know less for the test that won't be changed or made open-book/notes. It's only one class out of MANY...it'll be okay, trust me...so just relax. : )

Question answered. Thanks Ryan!!
Student1192

Y'all: It would be so much easier if you just did what the FAQ told you to do when writing code... as in, we'd actually be able to read ir and understand. In case you don't know, here it is:
How to get code to show up in the CoWeb

Some characters like and won't show up in the CoWeb typed as-is. And you have to do something special to get indentation to show up.

To type in code, start your program with

, then put in your code, and end it with

That tells the CoWeb and the browser you want PRE-formatted (indentations, too) text.
To type in an asterisk, type * (the semi-colon is important, too.)
To type in a less-than sign, type < This is important if you want to put HTML in your code. If you don't want to become a red X like this , then type <image src="">, and then HTML won't try to interpret the tag.

Mark could you go to the "count 'em up" page? I had a question on there, about breakout, and I didn't know how often you would check back. thanks!

Guys, if you have ANY questions, I would suggest iming a ta...they really are willing to help and they were awesome and answering any questions I had!!

TA Stephanie is awesome!

There's an assumption (in the earlier poster's question) that all computer science is just programming. It's not. Early exams are mostly about programming, but I think you'll find that the later exams are about a lot more than programming. Consider even now all the questions about representations, concepts, the Internet, and so on. Mark Guzdial

Will everyone please please please start posting their code for the address book function problem, because I am clueless and feedback from peers would be awesome at 8 p.m., the night before the midterm!

this can't be good!—>
"An error occurred while making an operating system call. Please tell a TA what you were doing when this happened, so we may correct it."
That is what JES told me when i tried to run a program.....that's not helping me study. HELP!?
Student931
gtg915r

That sounds like an error using files, REMOVEDsan. Be sure to close the file before you try to open it again. Mark Guzdial

Folks, be sure to SLEEP. The test is mostly on your ability to reason, not your ability to memorize. You need sleep to think things through tomorrow, not more time spent memorizing answers. Good luck! Mark Guzdial

The guys who did the Thursday night review session were AWESOME!!! And you know we're going to ask, so could the TAs go ahead and plan a final review? That way the can schedule it around whatever studying they have to do then. :)

The review session was VERY helpful and I just want to say thank you to the TA's that took the time out to show up and help us out. You are the best!!!

Let's not forget the Wed. review TAs. Thanks alot, y'all!

THANK YOU, TA'S!!

Ahhhhhh! another test DOMINATED

When will we get our test grades back?

We're grading on April 1. Mark Guzdial

The midterm was challenging, yet reasonable. I thought that there should have been maybe one or two smaller problems so that each problem wasn't worth as much, though.