The content (2)

The white board demonstration helps a lot, make things very clear.

Liam is a great lecturer and tutor, course content is very interesting and I like learning Haskell.

Content is interesting

Course content is interesting.

Haskell

The content is super fun, one of the most interesting courses I've done at uni so far.

The best thing about this course is I can have a view of how programming language works. I believe I will learn much faster when I try a new programming language.

Very fun course. So far, favourite thing is the assignment. 4 hours of timetabled lecturing = doesn't feel like rushing.

It's very interesting to learn about the definition of a proper programming language. And implementing a lexer, parser, evaluator, etc is fun! I find the typesetted notes very useful also.

Ummmm can learn something about Haskell :)

It is good to learn different aspects of programming languages.

The teaching style

semantics is really interesting

Great lecturer, great online lectures, interesting content and tutes. Lecture does tutorials, bonus marks

Haskell. Quiz.

The assignment! A lot of fun right now. And the weekly challenge exercises keeps you on your toes with the problems being fun to work on. I'd like to see more Math (I'm shit at Math, but definitely want to get better, so putting that stuff in would be amazing). Like learning about how algebra (the abstract kind) can be applied to PL, wtf is category theory and its applications, WHAT ABOUT LINEAR ALGEBRA?

Good explaination

Puzzles

The lecturer

Gave me some new ideas about coding

Understanding on a deeper level the nuances of programming languages

I like understanding the fundamentals of how the languages I use every day are constructed. It's cool seeing how so many small pieces recursively operate to create something so complex that we take for granted.

Liam, Michael and the course content that's covered. Also, the intermission puzzles are interesting.

rule induction, lambda calculus, and the puzzles

Learning how to implement (at least partially) a programming language and what goes into good language design

get to deign a language

The lecturer and other tutor

Learning about how programming langugages work and their foundations as well as functional programming in Haskell is quite fun

Applying knowledge in assignments

Interesting, challenging, makes you think in a different way than most other comp courses.

Haskell (2)

Not enough programming challenges

Hard

I feel like I'm not getting enough practice in applying the lecture content to questions. Sometimes I am confused as to what I am learning and how it applies to real life programming languages.

N/A

Proofs. I find them difficult, and I wish there were more easy examples given to practice on.

Questions on the forum aren't promptly answered

The emphasis on the use of an extensive library of syntax. Tangential topics optics should be saved for the extention lecture.

The worst thing is I feel frustrated when I could not understand some parts of the content very well. I think I need more examples to help me understand the lecture content

"Setting Up Haskell" page should include "Want to quickly play around in haskell? on 3161 shell, use ghci, :l ..." Due to lack of mention for the convenient ghci, combined with temporary quirks of my internet causing "stack build" to take half an hour, I didn't go into the course with much Haskell knowledge. But indeed, everything about Haskell that I needed to know was taught in lectures, so it was relatively inconsequential.

Examples are not enough.

Concepts are too abstract to understand

Nothing really - would be good to have a bit more programming to see the link between the theoretical and the practical more.

i still don't know whether i could pass this course or not

Not enough practice questions. Got taken by surprise in the midsem exam, even though I did the sample exam and the tutes

It's very abstract at times, which for me makes it quite hard. I can understand the general idea of what's going on but when it comes to applying it to questions I struggle.

Mandatory participation marks in tutorials

Lot of maths and equations and bit difficult to interpret,understand and apply.I was expecting more of programming based

A bit confusing, and feel like I am missing some assumed knowledge

Not sure what to do to handle this course.

DIfficulity in picking up new notation and concepts

The mathematical notation can be quite difficult to understand, since each item is not always explicitly explained. There is also a feeling of prerequisite knowledge that makes it a bit demotivating to learn content.

Slightly fast in some aspects (cannot underpin what exactly, maybe it's just a gut feeling thing)

So theory-heavy that it can be quite boring/struggle to even get through lectures.

Sometimes I feel like there's little explanation on new syntax/features of Haskell that are used so it makes it difficult for me to follow what's going on in the code - it's quite fast-paced in the lectures as there's a huge portion of those that do attend lectures that are already familiar with the language. Although when I can't follow, this can generally be fixed by me doing further research into the language and a revisit of your code through the web stream so not too big of a deal.

The course difficulty

Some of the content is quite hard to understand at first, although I think that just means I have to work harder

Having to learn haskell

Very content heavy, lots of notation to swallow and learn

N/A (2)

More haskell

They're great as is. Maybe release puzzle answers? :P

umm sometimes Liam went too fast. students are not smart enough to follow.

I think Liam really adds a lot to the lecture slides, and don't think there's much to improve.

One of my math lecturers, for which we have 3 one hour classes each week, spends on average the first 10 minutes of the lecture writing on the document camera ~"What we learnt last lecture". I don't know how universally applicable this idea is, but it feels like a very nice feature for those lectures. I vaguely remember you, half way into a video, asking half-rhetorically "Do you remember from last lecture? We did _, and it is applicable here.", the pause between the two sentences also coinciding with the change in my thoughts "Wait, what did we learnt last lecture? Ah, indeed, we learnt that in the last lecture".

Pace is a tad bit too fast, but i guess it's just me

Solve some questions similar to those will show up in the exam, from the midsem I found that I don't really know the actual step of how to solve each question, so I think maybe you can teach more about how we can actually find a way to solve each question rather than taking about the concept?

Include more practices of implementing questions

As I said earlier, more practical, real life examples would help validate my understanding of topics.

Sometimes we go a bit too quickly I think. Obviously there is a certain speed needed to get through the content but we also finish early sometimes as well. While you do stop and ask if there are any questions, it can be a bit intimidating to ask a question when material has been taught quite quickly, because it seems to imply that this content shouldn't be too challenging and we need to keep moving. There were also things like lambda calculus where the basics were really brushed over, and I felt at a disadvantage for not having taken courses which aren't even prereqs. Of course having taken compilers, 3141 etc will confer an advantage but I think the teaching should more assume that people don't know these things. There's definitely a few people in this boat (maybe some of them dropped), but this might be masked by the more vocal people in the lecture who better understand the material. Onus is also on me to actually speak up, but lectures could be more conducive to all levels of starting ability in this subject area, because I think that I'm capable of doing well, I just have zero background in any of this material.

Maybe a little bit more review in Haskell programming for newcomers to Haskell

Less bees

I feel like I just kinda get lost in the proofs, but I'm not really sure how you could fix that...

It would be good to see the way things work in a step-by-step way (when appropriate). For example, we never were shown how to evaluate small-step semantics, just how to code it. As someone who learns well from seeing the expected behaviour first, this would be great to have.

Not sure, they look good.

I hope more basic things can be taught in this course.

n/a

I think the lectures are very helpful especially when things are fully explained

None (2)

none

The faded preview of the next slide frame is distracting and short-circuits my brain from trying to come up with the actual answer because I subconsciously peek at them.

The slide content seems to have simplified terms; this is great because it is easy to understand. However I feel like questions in the tute and midsem use more formal jargon.

Remove the semi transparent answers from slides that you're asking questions about, no-one wants to answer when they know that they're just reading off the slides

Make sure nothing is ambiguous when reviewing the slides later on.

The slides are great.

I like the short/long version as makes it easy to revise

currently none

No improvement. Maybe slides with all white background because sometimes I screenshot some of the slides into my notes.

Slides are ideal

write details in a way so that we can understand each slide by just reading it ourselves.

only break sentences on slides where it makes sense to do so; line breaks make the content much more disjointed. make beamer's cover environment more opaque, so it's harder to just read through it to find answers to the questions in lectures.

If there could be some description, that'd be great.

More definitions and clarifications of symbols used.

Make sure there aren't any typos in the notes when doing the lectures (the content is difficult enough to understand as it is; typos slipping in doesn't help).

I would love to see almost a 'mind map' at the end of the course (sort of like the Where we're at in week 8 Tues lecture slides) that shows how topics all connect to one another (if its possible). This is probably especially useful for the first half of the course where everything sort of builds off each other. For example I quite easily forget the order of C, M and E machines and how they link. It would just be great if there was a way to visualise these connections.

Slides are extremely good and help make revising most things very easy!!

None (2)

Teach more haskeel

Less time on coding exercises, more time on theoretical questions.

more weekly homework would be nice

Wish it could be longer and includes more questions

Tutorials is really good

Maybe a couple more tutorial questions. I feel like I need to go to the challenge exercises more times than not to get extra practice but sometimes they end up being too hard. Would be good to have more middle ground questions

maybe release some notes on contents of tutorials

No improvement

Make the tutorials harder I guess. Or introduce some open ended programming assignment (take from like CMU's 15-312 2014 running). No need for starter code, that'd be a whole 3141 pain for Liam to write all over again.

Really great :)

more tutorial hours! a better room than QuadG040!

go through more examples / discuss potential misunderstandings and crucial concepts

My tutor is great, I'm quite happy with the tutorials.

The tutorials are quite good with going through some more worked examples, however they usually feel rushed towards the end so making them longer could definitely help

I think the current format is good, but possibly also presenting students in the tutorial with a question that we haven't seen before would also be good - it's more similar to test situations as you wouldn't exactly have multiple days to really be able to mull over and think about the questions. Realistically in exams you're presented a question, and being able to understand the content and apply those skills quickly is important due to time constraints.

Less working through already-understood content, maybe? (Hard to judge what is "already understood", though.)

Michael probably just needs slightly better time management, but otherwise covers topics in depth well

Really like that answers are provided afterwards.

None (2)

none

Just don't use them as much

In some cases they can be to verbose

The lecture notes are the best comparing to other courses I've enrolled

Not really, they're great.

Ummm maybe it's better to use projector and then you can write it faster.

currently none

Helpful but quite long so I only skim read them

I hadn't actually noticed these yet, just went and looked now they look pretty useful. You probably did mention them in the lecture and I didn't hear. Looks like useful stuff for studying, I much prefer to read something like this rather than relisten to lectures.

I don't really look at them, but they seem to be a good extension on the normal lecture notes.

Make them a bit more bite-sizes instead of huge paragraphs

make them *not* PDFs.

I haven't really looked at them honestly.

Nothing much, I just prefer the slides since they are more easily digestible.

Sometimes the notation is more confusing that it needs to be.

More details possibly

challenge exercises are really great, helps me to understand concepts clearly

None

Content is enough for me as it is

(I'll probably find them more useful later when I'm revising for the final)

They really help consolidate my knowledge, only way I could think to improve would be to add more.

I thought the exam was going to be way harder than it was because I thought the challenge exercises were the level expected. Maybe a set of "warm-up" questions as well? Although these are kind of the 2 starred questions.

Some part of the solutions is way too hard to understand...

currently none

Often too challenging and not really relevant to the course or what has been taught. Would prefer more relevant questions and more questions similar to exam questions.

It's very helpful but quite hard for me to solve without solution.

MoAR InTERsEcTioN of MATh cS iS DRAInING mY MATh SkISLl PLS SeV ME LiAM (it's ok i'm doing some math self study on the side, so I'll be good... for now). You'd think for a subject that's a brainchild of Mathematics, there'd be more math hmmmm

the answers are too broad.

Make more of them

Only time I've looked at them was revising for the midsem, and even then I'm not sure they helped me very much.

I don't really use them, but I found it quite difficult to use them.

They seem fine though a tad difficult (like the name suggests it to be...)

n/a

Puzzles? Good to break up lectures

I am indifferent to the challenge exercises.

N/A (2)

None

Cannot say; have not used them.

The glossary is great but I didn't pay attention on that until I saw this question

The glossary is amazing.

It's good:)

show where each symbol is used in terms of revelance

It is quite helpful. Missing a few symbols but overall I don’t have any suggestions.

It's very helpful

Probably something that could be better addressed in lecture notes with depth.

good to look up for quick definition, no further suggestions. Keep it up!

It's good for what it is, but having it be more complete would be fantastic.

Better updates for terms.

I often refer to the glossary. It is very helpful. Especially the symbols which are hard to search.

I didn't realise it existed.

Haven't found it necessary to use it, as the lecture slides have all the necessary definitions.

The glossary is very helpful

midsession exam is a little bit hard

Slightly lengthy imo. But otherwise it was fine - although I didn't do very well

More time.

I can get full marks if i've got 30 minutes more. I really hope the final exam is not a reading/writing speed contest like the mid sem exam please give us some time to think about the questions. In the midsession exam, i realised many mistakes i've made as soon as i handed in my paper.

Maybe a bit more time would have been nice since most seem time pressed, however I understand that there wasn't much that could be done about that. (On the flip side, maybe less content in the midsem so it didn't feel as rushed?)

The time is too tight to prepare. So I can't solve those problems fast.

May allow to have more time.

More exercise question plz

Some of the questions we haven't practised or knew how to do.

Compared to the sample exam given, it seemed like there was much more questions in the midsession (even with the extra 5 minutes). Also, some tutorials didn’t get to go through semantics before the exam, while some tutorials did. In my eyes this created a slightly unfair advantage, but I guess not much can be done about that.

It was fair but please make sure all tutes get a chance to learn that week's content please!

I think it was fair. Was disappointed a bit with how I went but I wouldn't blame the exam for any of that.

Harder than the given sample exam due to the proofs.

Don't say "I'd be happy to swap this exam and the sample for next year because they're of the same difficulty" when they're not the same difficulty

The midsem's questions were as expected, however the time was very pressed for the amount we have to write/think.

more questions for practice

As a webstream student with a tutorial on thursday I found it a bit unfair having content from the thursday and tuesday lectures prior in the exam. Due to working full time, I was unable to attend another tutorial to help get myself up to scratch. I felt confident in all other content, but the small-step/big step dynamic semantic question messed me up. If I was to take the same exam now I would be very fine in answering that question, but I felt that it wasn't as fair to students with tutorials on thursdays and the webstream students (who don't have the opportunity to ask questions in lectures)

Not sure.

Maybe a bit more time to do it if possible

Make it longer, 50 minutes is way too short for an exam.

more past paper

Only complaint is time constraints. Felt hard to work things through with little time, and hence becomes more about regurgitation in my opinion. That said, the questions were all fair.

Providing less hints :-)

I think it was a fair assessment, I was just behind.

None (2)

Seems a bit difficult considering how much haskell is taught in the course

Have started and likely to be close to the halfway mark for task 1. Haven't really coded in Haskell before, kind of intimidating and sometimes at a lost of where to start. I feel like there should be more comments in explaining why certain types are there.

Perhaps bonus marks should be capped for the particular assignment and not extend to other class components.

I haven't done too much of the assignment so far, but feel like Liam has outlined it well and given us a good build up for the skills that we need to complete it.

I'm not too sure how to debug Haskell errors. Maybe some intentional mistakes in lectures would help?

More example about some of the task.

Spend more time to cover the contents of the assignment and take a tour at the code

currently none

Haven't looked through it yet. Seems fair upon first glance though.

If there are some extra test files for task 2 ~ 6, it will be great.

N/A

make tests for the bonus/extra sections?

make the spec not a PDF. provide more documentation of the provided code, so it's somewhat easier to determine what's going on.

I'm loving doing some hands-on work. The test suite is great too, and makes up for any ambiguity in the spec, course notes and descriptions of the assignment. It would be nice to have similar tests for the bonus points, especially since 3/5 of them are required in order to complete the assignment fully.

Only finished up to task 1 so far, most of my time has been spent working out how the representation of the program is passed to the evaluator. I feel that if I hadn't of done COMP3141 course before this and never seen functional programming before, it would've made implementing the assignment more daunting

hope there will be consultation for it

No idea what im doing

Spec seems very verbose but at least initially quite confusing, it was unclear how to use the given resources without being told in the lecture, i.e. the spec doesn’t stand well on its own

None (2)

none

N/A

The forum is under-utilised so don't have much to judge off of

I dont really like creating different accounts for services I don't use often.

I read the "Your classmate posted a new Question" email notifications, and if I am interested in the answer I will check the forums. If I needed to ask a question and my tutorial slot wasn't soon upcoming, Piazza seems like a nice place to ask.

It's good :)

I like piazza, although I find webcms to be a much better platform. Piazza has a weird way for answering questions, where the ‘student answer’ can consist of multiple different students, and students can even delete other student answers! Also there is no way to get sturec marks or anything like that. Webcms makes it easier since everything is in one place, while currently we have 2 websites which seems unproductive.

I like piazza, haven't asked anything yet but I probably will. I think I have a good view of piazza because of OS, so hopefully it can be helpful here as well.

Thanks for answering all the questions on the forum in a timely manner! Not all profs do that

don't use piazza because its crap just have a forum on the website

I wasn't really aware there was a Piazza until seeing this survey question, and have now realised that I'm not actually able to access the Piazza (I think it's because I enrolled late).

Sometimes there are delays on responses.

Personally I prefer Ed because it allows multiple student/tutor answers, but other than that the class forums is good

it is really new to me, i dont really use it

Credit to how quick you've been to answer questions.

I find piazza very helpful and think it should continue to be used

None (2)

Sometimes I'm confused why I'm learning certain things, it'd be great if he tied it back to real life

Liam may need to take care of the not-that-smart students.

Teaching practical use of haskell (Examples don't cover all concepts needed to use the language, would be helpful to link to some more complete tutorials), Would like it if more of the extension lectures spent time going over examples and revision of past topics that would be in exams, Jashank's laugh

I honestly can't think of anything different he should be doing with his teaching, I really resonate with the way that he introduces concepts and how he is able to add something new onto each topic that he talks about in lectures.

Sorry can't think of any :(

1, Not enough exercise question 2, Wish there would be more content outside lecture could read, currently the textbooks recommended are all about Haskell 3, Could give more detailed explanation new concepts. Sometimes it is just like read the concept in the slide then quickly start using it.

-

too few exercise questions for exam

Bit of a gap between theoretical content on slides and exam questions

He explains things so well that there's times when you think you understand it, but you really don't. I think the first physics class at Caltech that had Feynnman had that same problem. A way to improve this would be to not jump on the first person's answer to a difficult question, but instead ask another probing question addressed to the rest of the class to see if the whole class really does understand the concept. Can't think of any other bad aspects Liam, mabadddd GiVE US hUGE cHAellGNE LiEK oN PAR wITH A REsEACH ProEJCT / PROG ProJEct throughout the whole semester to work on that would be reallll fun, with proposals and stuff man that'd be cool

may be just slow down a bit and not to teach so many things at once. i have to go through each tutorial 2-3 times to fully understand class lectures.

Explain something content easier/dumber especially in tutorials

Sometimes he goes very quickly

Sometimes using too many contextual/intellectual jargon

1. Sometimes we aren't given enough time to form a good mental model, perhaps use more analogies, so we can get a more intuitive understanding 2. Sometimes the lecture recording turns off when the lecture is still going on. Not a fault of Liam, but it does make a difference when we miss content 3. Um...

Nothing

1. Goes too fast; 2. Assumes audience is as comfortable with the material as he is

No idea.

I haven't found any significant issues with Liam's teaching.

At some points he moves a bit quickly, and he could do more to motivate web lecture students, such as announce when spots in lecture are open.

Clearly describes concepts, introduces concepts in a logical sequence

Knowledgeable

Breaks down explanations, very beautiful slides and board exampes.

Effective teaching style, approachable, knowledgeable

Obviously passionate about the topic. Says people are wrong. Has very well educated and smart opinions.

Speaks clearly. Explains things in an easy to understand format. Is approachable.

Passion for comp sci.

Patience and interesting teaching

Liam is able to break down concepts and identify the thinking errors that students are making. He has a calm demeanour which makes approachable. He caters to students needs, esp. those on the web stream! The web stream recordings are great and I don't feel like I'm missing out by being on the web stream.

He can clearly explained hard theory and really smart.

Explain complex ideas in simple words (iff you understand the syntax well at the beginning)

His teaching style

1. Haskell programming - helps to clarify concepts

I think he really knows what he is talking about, I think anyone could ask any question within the cope of the course and he could answer it concisely and accurately. I think he has an interest in our learning, some lecturers are just there to lecture and if we learn then that's good but if not then oh well. I think Liam takes our learning seriously.

1. Answers all questions effectively and clearly 2. Interactive; asks class questions instead of droning on without bounds 3. Uses precise language to explain concepts

Interactive,good explaination

passionate, supportive, humourous.

enthusiastic, engaging, enlightening

Ability to break down complicated concepts Interactive with the class and seems like he really cares

- Very engaging and well explained in the way that you present content (and your clear enthusiasm) to the class, I feel like it keeps me interested. - Good mixture of all three kinds of content: theoretical stuff presented on slides, practical programming presented in in-lecture coding and hands-on exercises presented in tutorials (which solidify concepts and understanding). - I think that the selection of what content we actually have to be able to do (or what we should focus on rather) is really good. For example in the exam I think that the selection of exercises and questions was quite good and promoted understanding rather than memorisation. Also the assignment was well-constructed in giving us the pre-completed lexer and parser as well as really solid pre-written tests to help us keep track and have reference to go off when writing our own MinHS programs.

Very well organized. Very good notes. Very clear speaking voice and good pace.

He applies the feedback he gets from students, the puzzles are a good break between lecture content, thirdly the lecture slide content is nicely organised

1. Puzzles/questions are interesting.

the thinking questions during the break is good

His enthusiasm, knowledge of the course content and his dedication to the course.

Live coding in lectures helps, it's great when he goes through his thought process while coding. Additionally, Liam tackles harder concepts quite well and uses examples well to help introduce harder concepts. Vocal clarity is a big plus for watching recordings.

- Pretty fun/engaging/enthusiastic - usually doesn’t present the content in an overly dry, boring way - usually explains concepts clearly/carefully