Welcome to cs3113. If you got this far, you are in good shape.
Prof. Hougen, 22 August 2001
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Due to a server problem, the assignment was not available to you yesterday
afternoon, as promised. Therefore, you will have an additional day to
complete it. It will now be due at 9:00 am on Wednesday, September 19,
rather than Tuesday, September 18, as indicated on the assignment itself.
Prof. Hougen, 5 September 2001
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As mentioned today in class, the assignment due date has been pushed off
another day, due to a delay in getting accounts created (due to the server
problems and loss of email from Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday). It is
now due at 9:00 am on Thursday, September 20.
Also, if you are currently looking for class members to be on your team for
this project, please email me and I will put you in touch with other class
members who are looking for team members.
Prof. Hougen, 6 September 2001
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As announced in class today, I will be holding a replacement office hour
tomorrow (Friday, September 14) from noon until 1 pm. This is a
replacement for the one I missed on Tuesday afternoon.
Also, a FAQ has been added to the web pages for the first assignment.
Prof. Hougen, 13 September 2001
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A second FAQ has been added to the web pages for the first assignment.
Prof. Hougen, 17 September 2001
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Instructions for empirical testing are now on the web pages next to the
FAQs for the first assignment.
Prof. Hougen, 18 September 2001
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Instructions for electronic submission of assignments have been added to
the class web pages. (See the home page for the class.)
An additional extension on the project is granted. It is now due by 6 pm
on Friday, September 21.
Prof. Hougen, 19 September 2001
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A third FAQ has been added to the web pages for the first assignment.
Prof. Hougen, 20 September 2001
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A fourth and, I hope, final FAQ for project 1 has been added to the web
pages for the first assignment.
Prof. Hougen, 21 September 2001
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If you want to be sure to know when the MOTD file is updated, besides
having it displayed every time you log in (as suggested in the Syllabus),
you can also use xbiff to keep track of it. Normally, xbiff is used to
notify users of new mail, but you can use it to notify you of changes to
any file, including the MOTD file. To do this, type the following at a
shell prompt (or add it to the appropriate login script for the shell you
are using):
% xbiff -file ~hougen/www/classes/Fall-2001/cs3113/materials/MOTD &
Note that you can use this either directly on the lab machines when you are
logged in, or from another UNIX or Linux machine from which you have
remotely connected to the lab machines, as long as you have used ssh with X
forwarding enabled to log in. (To do the latter, you can log in using "ssh
-X".)
Prof. Hougen, 26 September 2001
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The second project has been added to the class web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 26 September 2001
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Study aids (old exams and/or solutions) have been added to the class web
site. Don't forget, the exam is next Tuesday (Oct. 2)! It will be held at
the normal time and in the normal classroom for our class.
Prof. Hougen, 27 September 2001
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A FAQ for the first exam has been added to the class web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 2 October 2001
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A FAQ for the second project has been added to the class web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 4 October 2001
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I have decided to scale the first exam by giving back to each student 1/3
of the points taken off. So, for example, someone who got lost 60 points
would get 20 points back, someone who lost 30 points would get 10 points
back, someone who lost 3 points would get 1 point back, and someone who
lost 0 points would get 0 points back. This reflects the fact that the
distribution of scores covered a much wider range than would have been
expected.
Prof. Hougen, 10 October 2001
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A second FAQ for the second project has been added to the class web pages.
Also, an additional extension on the project is granted. It is now due by
6 pm on Friday, October 19.
Prof. Hougen, 12 October 2001
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A third FAQ for the second project has been added to the class web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 16 October 2001
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A final extension on the project is granted. It is now due by 6 pm on
Monday, October 22. Do not expect further extensions to this or other
project deadlines in this class.
Also, the third project is now on the class web pages. Students should get
a start on that project as soon as they are able.
Prof. Hougen, 18 October 2001
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A fourth FAQ for the second project and a first FAQ for the third project
have been added to the class web pages. Also, likely point allocations for
these two projects have been added as well.
Prof. Hougen, 20 October 2001
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A fifth FAQ for the second project has been added to the class web pages.
Also, as mentioned in class, my office has now changed to EL 128.
Hardcopies of assignments should be dropped off at my new office and my
office hours will be held in my new office as well.
Also, my office hours for this Thursday (Oct. 25) will be moved to this
Wednesday (Oct. 24). They will be held at the normal time for Thursday
office hours (that is, noon until 1 pm).
Prof. Hougen, 22 October 2001
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My office hour for next week, scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 30, at 2:00 to
3:00 pm will be moved to Wednesday, Oct. 31, at 2:00 to 3:00 pm.
Also, for those of you wondering how to change the time stamp on a file for
project 3, take a look at the utime() system call.
Prof. Hougen, 25 October 2001
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A second FAQ for the third project has been added to the class web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 2 November 2001
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A third FAQ the third project has been added to the class web pages.
Also, an extension to the due date on project 3 is hereby granted. This is
because I found that my explanation of the -r flag was not clear and I want
to have one single interpretation used in this assignment. This
interpretation was discussed in class yesterday morning and is also
discussed in the third FAQ for this project.
The new deadline is 6:00 pm on Monday, November 12. (The hard copy will be
due within 24 hours of the electronic copy, as always.)
However, to reward students who have been working to get project 3 done on
time, I will give a bonus of 10% for groups that turn in their project by
the original due date. (Note that this is 10% of the points earned, so if
you earn 50 points, you will get 5 bonus points. Your total points plus
bonus points may exceed 100.)
Because I want to leave sufficient time in the schedule for the fourth
project, however, I will push off the deadline for that project to Monday,
December 3.
Prof. Hougen, 7 November 2001
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After serious reconsideration, I have decided to make the bonus for on-time
submission of the third project be 20%, rather than 10%.
Prof. Hougen, 7 November 2001
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A fourth FAQ the third project has been added to the class web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 7 November 2001
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A fifth FAQ the third project has been added to the class web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 8 November 2001
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I have decided to scale the second exam in the same way as I did the first
exam -- I will be returning 1/3 of the points taken off.
Prof. Hougen, 8 November 2001
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The first part of project 4 has been added to the web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 9 November 2001
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A sixth (and, I hope, final) FAQ the third project has been added to the
class web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 12 November 2001
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The solution key for exam 2 has been added to the web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 13 November 2001.
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The second part of project 4 has been added to the web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 15 November 2001
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I MAY not be able to hold office hours today. I have a meeting that should
be over by then but may run late. If I AM able to hold office hours today,
I will update the MOTD file BEFORE office hours to let you know.
Otherwise, I will update the MOTD file AFTER my scheduled office hours to
let you know when I will make them up (sometime next week).
My apologies for the late notice.
Prof. Hougen, 20 November 2001
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I AM available to hold office hours today and will be here until 3 pm, as
per normal.
Prof. Hougen, 20 November 2001
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I have added a FAQ for project 4 to the class web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 21 November 2001
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I have added a second FAQ for project 4 to the class web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 28 November 2001
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I have added a third FAQ for project 4 to the class web pages.
Prof. Hougen, 29 November 2001
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I hope that most of you are done with project 4 or are very close.
However, for those of you still working, I have added a fourth FAQ.
Prof. Hougen, 3 December 2001
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The selection of study materials for exams has been updated, adding a new
solution and two new exams.
Prof. Hougen, 7 December 2001
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A directory of example assignments has been added to the class web pages.
These are assignments turned in by students in the class that received 100%
for the functionality of the code. These are provided so that students who
weren't able to figure out how to make their programs satisfy some of the
requirements of the projects can see working code that does satisfy these
requirements. I hope you find this of use in studying for your final exam.
As a reminder, that final will be on Wednesday morning from 8-10 am, as
announced in class. Also as a reminder of what has been announced
previously, the final will be in our normal classroom, will be open book(s)
and open notes, and there will be no electronic devices permitted in the
classroom.
Prof. Hougen, 8 December 2001
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Both Eric Diamond and I will be holding our regular office hours this week.
Prof. Hougen, 10 December 2001
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This is a correction to the last message. I will hold my regular office
hours this week. Eric Diamond will hold his on Wednesday and Friday from
12:30 - 2:00 pm.
Prof. Hougen, 10 December 2001
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As mentioned in class last week, your scores will be placed into the
BlackBoard system for you to verify. These
should be up by tonight or sometime tomorrow and will include project 4 and
all previous exams and projects. Obviously, exam 3 will not be included at
this time.
For those students who had scores adjusted on previous exams, please be
sure to bring those exams with you to the exam tomorrow, so that we can
verify changes. Also, if you notice any discrepancies between the score
you received on your projects or exams and those recorded in BlackBoard, be
sure to bring those materials with you to the exam or to office hours when
asking for corrections.
The scores for the first three projects have been adjusted as follows:
Projects 1-3: The score you originally received should be considered a
base score for a team of five members. If your actual team size was five,
your base score will not be adjusted. However, for every team member less
than five in your group, you will receive back 20% of the points deducted,
up to a maximum of 80% (since the minimum group size is two). This is to
reflect the policy spelled out at the beginning of the semester that the
same quality assignment would be graded more harshly as the number of group
members increased. (Note, however, that if you received zero points
because you did not turn in an assignment or because the assignment you
turned in was not gradable, your score will still be zero, not 80%.)
Project 1: The scores have been adjusted to get less weight to the
write-up and more to the correct functioning of the program. In the
original scoring the project was weighted as follows: 50% functioning code,
20% style, 30% write-up. The adjusted scores are: 60% functioning code,
20% style, 20% write-up.
As discussed previously, the grading scale for the course will be:
90%+ A
80%-89% B
70%-79% C
60%-69% D
00%-59% F
Prof. Hougen, 11 December 2001
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There was a math error in my previous message. The maximum amount returned
is 60% for a group of 2, not 80%. My apologies for this error.
Prof. Hougen, 12 December 2001
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I need to change the time for my office hour for tomorrow. Rather than my
normal hour of noon until 1:00 pm, I will hold my office hour from 10:00 am
until 11:00 am. My apologies for this late notification.
Prof. Hougen, 12 December 2001
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Here is a message from Jim Summers, who is the system administrator for CS:
Please have the students in your classes in which we created accounts
for this past fall semester make backups of any files that they want to
save. They could simply tar the needed files into a tar file and then
ftp it to their ECS home directory.
A possible sequence of commands would be (while the pwd is their home):
tar cvf myfiles.tar *
ftp
at the ftp prompt: binary
put myfiles.tar myfiles.tar
bye
I will backup the home filesystem before I clean off the accounts.
That will happen before the start of the spring semester.
Prof. Hougen, 12 December 2001
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If you have not done so already, you may pick up your final exams and
discuss your grade in the class with me starting the first week of January
2002. I'll post office hours to let you know when I'll be around. Your
on-line scores reflect your final exams and fourth projects as entered and
revised by Eric Diamond. I'll make any updates I have to this file also
the first week of January 2002.
Thank you all for a very enjoyable semester.
Prof. Hougen, 19 December 2001