[The University of New South Wales]

COMP1711
Triple M rocks Higher Comp 1A
2004 Session 1



School of Computer Science and Engineering
The University of New South Wales
Sydney Australia

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hi guys,

just to let you know that kate and i saw Figaro at the opera house 
with the tickets you so kindly gave me.  We were right at the front.  
It was glorious!  I've bought the dvd of it and the girls love it
too and now walk around the house singing italian.

i've missed you guys - last 1711 was the best session ever - i can't
see how it could get any better next year.  once the dust has settled 
from my session 2 security subject i'll post the 1711 postmortem
and a summary of the feedback you wrote in the last lecture. I'll put
the link here in the stop press.

if you want to help with 1711 next year there are three ways:
  1. apply to be a tutor (tho it looks like we might be restricted
even further next year with how many tutors we can employ
  2. read the postmortem and plans for next year once posted and send me 
any comments of suggestions
  3. volunteer to come back to speak at an early 1711 lecture to 
give a more compelling argument to students about assignment starting
early, style, etc etc than i can give as a teacher.
  4. apply for a guest presence on the 1711 forum as a wise ex-student 

all the best with your future study and don;t hesitate to contact me
if i can ever be of help.

fond regards,
richard

08/07 We've finalised the marks.  You can see the mark I've submitted
      for you using 
         classrun -sturec  
      it's called "Submitted".  This mark is only provisional and
      may change up or down before your final results get posted
      out to you by the uni.  I'll let you know when the school 
      examinors meeting is over and the school has approved the
      marks (which makes them a bit more reliable).  I'll tart 
      up the web page a bit too over the next week and post the
      results of the post mortem i had with tutors too if you are
      interested in seeing what we thought worked and didn't and our
      plans for next year.
     
      To all congrats.  It was a very nice experience to go over 
      the exams and see the great work you produced.  To Yose and 
      Glen: congrats on a perfect 100.  We don't hand those out 
      lightly. 
      
24/06 Best wishes to you all for tomorrow's exam.  Check back 
      here in two weeks for results, exam stats, and subject
      summary.  In the meantime let me say i am proud of you
      guys and what you have done in this subject. 

09/06 Task 2 finalists code and diaries published (below).  
      Very interesting reading.  Try the acid test: look at
      their code - how easy is it to understand? 

2004 "There will be no other Transit of Venus till the 21st century 
     of our era has dawned upon the Earth, and the June flowers are 
     blooming in 2012.

     "When this last Transit occurred the intellectual world of 
     1711 students was awakening from the slumber of last minute 
     cramming, and that wondrous intellectual activity which has 
     led to their present advanced state of knowledge was just a 
     beginning. What will be the state of their mind and spirit 
     when the next Transit season arrives God only knows."

     RICHARD BUCKLAND - 2004

08/06 No extension lecture tomorrow (as no topic requests have been 
      made).  However i've started to put some self-learn cgi 
      material up.  check out the forum for the first few steps.

08/06 Project quality mark in labs this week.  
      Transit of Venus from 3pm-5pm today.

4/6/4 Anniversary of Arriane5 (96), of Tiananmen Square (89), of 
      today (04)

WINTER want cheap stuff?  the uni sells old gear off cheaply by
       tender from time to time.  the latest tender is out now.
       link below.

30/05 week 13 lab now up also.  note the slightly varied
      conditions on brownie points for this week.

29/05 tute now up with some resources for your debate.

28/05 Although the spec says 

        "Submit your final solution by 10pm on Wednesday week 12 
        (May 26th). Submissions after this will not be accepted 
        at all"

      a large number of students have requested resubmitting with
      very small changes to their code.  We have decided to relax 
      the rules on a global basis rather than on an ad hoc case-by-
      case basis in the interests of fairness.

      We will now accept resubmissions until sunday 10pm.  We will
      compare the new submission with all submissions you made before 
      the final submission time.  If new submission is a MINOR change
      of a previous submission we will deduct 1 assignment mark.  
      MINOR will be a benchmark determined by us at our descretion
      with judges decision final.  Changing a few lines is minor, 
      changing 10 lines is not.

      If the change is not minor then we will accept the submission
      but your final mark will be capped at 50%.  We will suspend
      the competition during this period and resume on Sunday night.
      will will accept NO resubmission after this new deadline.  Read
      that carefully as we are SERIOUS about this.  If you resubmit
      make sure you get it right as once the new deadline passess you 
      will get no further chances - and if your resubmission introduces
      new errors then you will be stuck with them.


1882 "There will be no other Transit of Venus till the 21st century 
     of our era has dawned upon the Earth, and the June flowers are 
     blooming in 2004.

     "When this last Transit occurred the intellectual world was 
     awakening from the slumber of ages, and that wondrous scientific 
     activity which has led to our present advanced state of knowledge 
     was just beginning. What will be the state of science when the 
     next Transit season arrives God only knows."

     WILLIAM HARKNESS - 1882

25/05 Thanks to all students who turned up today to help with 
      packing up the lego and trains.  It was very kind of you all 
      to be so generous with your time.  An equally big thanks to 
      joseph, alan, and mei cheng who have worked hard above and 
      beyond the call of duty to help make Thomas a success.
 
25/05 Extension lecture tomorrow is NOT on computing.  It's 
      on Teaching and Learning.

      In my head-cold befuddled state last week I announced
      the wrong talk for this week (i *had* actually planned
      to do Ben Franklin) and I'll honour that.  Ben Franklin
      now tentatively rescheduled for week 14.
  
22/05 Edit: Tut now up.  Lab now up.
      I've been a bit out of action this week and tutes
      and labs are late i'm sorry.  The presentation topic 
      is my top priority as i've just remembered there are 
      a few presentations still running in week 12. 
      
22/05 CONGRATUALTIONS TO ALL THOMAS FINALISTS!  AND
      to the most fat of the fat controllers - Paul Szabo.
      Paul won the Silver Triangle Of Computing for his
      efforts.  Long may it ting for you Paul!
      The grand final was great fun to watch.  I'll post
      photos when i get them in and sorted.

18/05 Thomas finals at 11:30am tomorrow in Lyre lab.
      The finalists are:
      Lambert Kiang      Yin Qi Wang      Yoppy Suwanto
      Paul Szabo         Jane Sivieng

18/05 Thomas finals tomorrow morning.  We'll post the names
      of the finalists here tonight.  

18/05 Project spec has gone final.  Only change is that the 
      final due date has been pushed back 2 days till 10pm
      wed week 12 to give you the same number of chances to
      tweak your brains after competitions.  

18/05 Competition this wed will be for marks for individuals.
      However group games will not be for marks on Wed. Group 
      games will be for marks starting from the Friday comp. 

18/05 Second round of comp results now available.  New versions
      of Referee and BrainNaive available.

15/05 The Thomas ruthless finals will be running in the lyre lab
      mon tue and the grand final between the top two or four 
      trains on wed 12-1.  Your trains will get to experience the
      magnificent and somewhat diabolical constructions of the 
      testbed team.  

      Keep the time free if you think you might make it.  I'll 
      video it so all can view it later. There may be a few 
      spectator spots also - we'll see how crowded the lab is... 
      (all testbed students are invited ofcourse!)

15/05 The first scheduled B&B comp after the initial due date won't
      be for marks - so you can use it to test out your brain.

14/05 The sample Referee has been updated to correct a bug.  If 
      you are using this to test your code download a fresh copy.

12/05 Having problem taking lecture notes?  Note taking syndicate
      didn't work?  Nat has opened up a wiki for us (below) - now 
      everyone can contribute to shared lecture notes.  Go on 
      try it, i've just tried it, it's easy.
  
03/05 Private tute-group forums are running for discussing the 
      project.  Your tutor will mail you the access password for
      your group.  Contact them if you need access and you don't 
      have the password yet.  (Note: Passwords can only be 
      mailed to your cse account, not to yahoo etc.)
 
01/05 Project spec released.  Note there is no extension lecture
      planned for this coming week.

26/04 Extension lecture on wednesday on the two most famous 
      hackers ever caught, and on some of the non computing 
      techniques one of them (Kevin Mitnik) used.

17/04 Extension lecture on wed on www and www programming.

17/04 All labs in lyre lab this week.  You'll only have an hour in 
      the lab so be on time and practise finding the lab beforehand.  
      (it's on level 3 of elec eng building).   Andrew Adam's tutorial 
      groups will have their LAB in their normal TUTORIAL time this 
      week, so they need to come to LYRE LAB at the start of their 
      *tutorial* time, instead of going to their usual tutorial room.

      Bring your task 2 code along with you to the lab.  The lab marks
      this week require your task 2 code.

05/04 Extension lecture on wed will be on Douglas Hofstadter.
      Author of "Godel, Escher, Bach" and puzzle writer for
      Scientific American.  IMHO the best book ever written.
      In lab 6 Q6 "/" means normal division, not integer
      division.  Thanks to all who have asked for this
      clarification.

03/04 I slightly changed the Week 6 Tutorial and Lab exercises 
      this morning (sat 9am).  Please download fresh copies for 
      the up-to-date versions.
 
01/04 Today we saw how to use GOTO and other BASIC commands
      in Haskell.  This is non-examinable and will just
      lead to poor programming so I strongly suggest you
      don't fool around with this feature.

31/03 Task1 autotests results released. For how to collect
      your assignment see Check your results link. 

31/03 Extension lecture today on algorithms.  11-12 eelg1.

29/03 Transfers from 1011 into 1711 are now closed.  If you 
      applied to transfer before the end of week 4 then you 
      must finalise your transfer this week (week5).  Transfers
      *from* 1711 to 1011 are still open.  We suggest 1711 
      students considering transferring to 1011 do so by the 
      end of this week.

29/03 There is a new co-op scholarship available for first year 
      comp sci students.  $12,000 pa plus work experience.  this 
      is a great scholarship but applications close thursday noon 
      so you'll have to be fast.  for more info see link below.

23/03 Extension lecture Tomorrow 11-12 EELG1 (rex vowels)
      Topic: Alan Turing (AI, crypto, computability)

15/03 Limits for English, French, Japanese reduced slightly.
      Test page should now have all reported bugs fixed.  Assignment
      will shortly go to version 1.0 (non draft).  This is your
      last chance to request changes to the grammars.

      Fixed a bug in lastElt function in Week02.hs (see
      week 2 files in the Schedule (below)

11/03 Task1 draft specification released.  Start thinking
      about the problem, now although you won't be able to
      start coding until next week.

11/03 Tutorial presentation link on info page was broken, 
      now fixed.  A link added below too.  We picked class
      reps yesterday - contact them from this page or chat
      to them before/after (but not during!) lectures.
 
06/03 Scavenger hunt (lab01) now available.  Due before
      your first tutorial.  

      Lab 2 and Tute 2 now available, read them and prepare
      as much as you can before coming to your week 2 
      tutorial.

04/03 I've added a collection of answers to frequently asked
      questions (see FAQ link below).  This tells you how
      to enable your account, how to read your cse email,
      how to read and post on the forum.  If you have any
      more questions ask them in the forum and i'll update
      the FAQ.

02/03 Tutorials don't start till week 2.  The optional lecture
      doesn't run in week 1.  Your first encounter with 1711 
      in week 1 will be the wednesday 1pm lecture in EELG1.

09/02 Thursday 9am to 11:30am tutorial-lab classes are cancelled
      because they clash with lecture at a new time of Thursday 11am.
      Thursday 5pm to 7:30pm class is also not running this session.
      Students in the above classes must change your enrolment using
      myUNSW as soon as possible.

      Any queries email cs1711@cse.unsw.edu.au

04/02 The question most likely on your mind is "should i do 1011
      or 1711?"  Firstly note you can change freely between them
      (subject to the 1711 class size limit) in the first few
      weeks.  So this is not a critical decision before uni starts.
      However to help you i'll put up an info page on the difference
      between them and some advice later on today.

      To get a feel for 1711 check out our 2003 website (link below)
      it's a fair indication for the flavour of the subject.

      We DONT assume you have done any computing already for 1011
      or 1711.  There is no extra credit for doing 1711, the uni
      regards the subjects as interchangable.  We do extra work 
      in 1711.  You'd be mad to do 1711.  That said - it's a lot 
      of fun.

      If you have a high maths mark you SHOULD do 1711 (that
      seems to be a good indicator of computing aptitude for
      many students).  If you don't have a high maths mark
      you are still welcome to do higher if you are feeling
      enthusiastic.  BUT if you don't have a high maths mark
      you need to print out and sign the form 

         "transferring INTO 1711" 

      (see link below) and hand it in at the CSE school office.

04/02 Check this "stopPress" page regularly as all subject 
      information will be posted here.  This site will be updated 
      frequently (including before session commences).  
      Make sure you check back here before week 1 for more information 
      about what you need to do in week 1, details about tutorial & 
      labs in week 1, and answers to frequently asked questions.

04/02 To transfer INTO 1711: print out the consent form (link below),
      sign it, and take it into the school office (ground floor of the
      K17 building)

04/02 There will be a scavenger hunt as part of your week 1 lab mark.

04/02 The 1711 lecture times shown on the timetable may not be correct.
      More details as soon as the correct times are confirmed (we are
      waiting on confirmation of lecture room bookings).  
      Also in some weeks we will run an optional extension
      lecture in the hour wed 11-12 this is just for fun, but if you 
      can you should try to arrange your timetable to leave that time 
      free).

04/02 Welcome to comp1711!




1711 Homepage last modified 3 March 2005 | maintained by richard buckland