Task 2 - Network Simulator

Specification

The precise description of what you are to do

Examples

• Some tests and sample data are now available here. However, as the programmer, you are responsible for generating your own tests and test data.

Help

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - Ask your question here. Read this regularly. Please also answer questions or offer what help you can to unanswered questions. Please treat this FAQ as an open public forum for 1711 students.

All students have access premission to ask and to offer answers in this FAQ.

Getting Started

Step 1: Create a directory task2 to store all your assignment work. Download all files to your new directory.

Step 2: Read all files carefully. As stated in task 1 - a past student recommends:

"Read the spec at least three times before starting. It is far too easy to start writing a program and realize that you've spent two hours programming the wrong thing!"

Step 3: Try to work out how the inputs to makeNetwork describe a network. Draw a simple network on paper, label the tracks, and try to work out how you would specify it using [Track].

Step 4: Read the FAQ. And re-read it regularly during the assignment period. If at any stage you have any problems or questions, read the FAQ first! If no-one has asked the question yet, add your question to the FAQ.

Step 5:Think about a backup strategy for your work to allow you to recover files after a catastrophie (eg your computer might get stolen during the assignment).

Due Date

The task is due 23:59 Saturday 3 May 2003.

Normal late penalties apply for submissions on Sunday or Monday. No submissions will be accepted afer 23:59 Monday.

Marking scale

The performance mark will be calculated by autotesting your functions against a suite of simple tests. These will check that various combinations and sequences of your functions produce a correct final output.

The subjective mark is determined by your tutor to measure:

1. Meaningful names
2. Good commenting
3. Appropriate breakdown of functions into subfunctions
4. Layout of code
5. Clarity
6. Non trivial diary
7. Network type design - clarity and completeness

"Clarity and completeness" means how easy the Network type is to understand, and whether or not it is sufficient to include all the information needed to be able to implement the interface functions.

If you have any questions about how the subjective marks are awarded you can ask your tutor in your tutorial.

Assignment Diary

You are to keep a diary for this assignment. Each day write down what you did, problems you had, ideas, and breakthroughs etc. The diary should be about 3 pages long by the end of the assignment. Record your diary in text format (NOT word format) in a file called Diary.txt.

Plagiarism

Students can help each other with ideas and debugging. However the code you submit must be wholly your own.

Copyright

This is so we can use your work as an example to students in future sessions. We typically do this to demonstrate poor style and programming traps.

We will identify you as author if we ever use your material for non-educational purposes. Otherwise we will keep your material anonymous unless we are praising it. If you would like to be identified as the author of a file even if we are not praising it, then include the following line at the top of the file:

-- Please identify me as the author whenever referring to this.

Submitting

How to Submit:

1. CHECK the file before you submit it. Each year many students make last minute changes just before submitting and don't check them, and their programs don't work.
   Checklist
   • Check your modules compile.
   • One common mistake students make each year is to add last minute comments but then forget to put -- before some of them.
   • Check your functions, modules, and files all have the correct names.
   • Check your code works using the latest versions of the stub modules provided. Press shift-reload in netscape to check you have the latest version of each page.
   • Check your code works for the published test cases.
   • Check you have not altered anything in the protected regions of the stub files.
   • Check you have put header comments with your name and tutorial in it at the top of the file. Don't put your student number in the file as other students may get to see the file.
   There is an automatic 1 mark penalty if your code has to be hand fixed to get it to load or to run, or if you submit the wrong file etc.
2. You must submit the following:
   1. Your Haskell module: Network.hs
   2. Your diary, as the file Diary.txt.

• After you have checked your submission, and you are sure it is working, submit it by typing one of the following commands in an xterm window (or by using ssh from home if you know how to do so):

  give cs1711 task2 Network.hs Diary.txt

• You may submit as often as you wish but only your last submission will be marked.
• The submission process may take a few minutes to complete (especially around the deadline!) so don't leave it to the last minute to submit or you may be late.
• To check that your submission has been accepted, you can type:

  1711
  classrun -check task2

Revision History

• [30/4/03] Copyright conditions altered, test cases and code added
• [21/4/03] Released