CMPSC 220 - Allegheny College - Spring 2009
I posted them to the WWW, but failed to mention it in my last note.
The structure and list solutions are now online.
If you would be willing to provide feedback on this past lab, that would be excellent. I somehow managed to destroy the two comments on lab one—my apologies. I do not yet understand the JS-Kit comment system I chose, and now those two comments seem to be gone. I'll find a way to archive your comments next time around.
The XML lab received two small updates: question seven was clarified, and an error in question five (the creation of binary trees) was corrected.
This post is simply part of the suggested campaign to communicate these kinds of changes. If you would be so kind as to evaluate Lab 2, that would be wonderful.
I remain impressed with your efforts. Keep up the excellent work.
Bob Ross, father of happy trees.
You know, I meant to introduce trees during class today. I didn't. We'll take five at the start of lab, however, and make sure you've got the basics. (Actually, the lab does cover the basics, so I think you'll be good to go.)
Thursday's lab is posted. Apologies for it going up late. Nursery activities this weekend obliterated my prep time, in case you were hoping I'd give you excuses.
Another amazing screencast. This provides a review of map and fold, but without all of the leadin about lambda.
If you'd like to see a screencast on lambda as I presented it in class, drop me an email.
Map and Fold from mjadud on Vimeo.
As per your request, for this week I've simply provided commentary on your code. Please read it and reflect back on your code with your partner, and see if you can't address the kinds of comments I made in your next lab.
I want to reiterate that the HtDP recipe for handling lists as presented in Chapter 9 of that text will help you a great deal in structuring your code for processing lists. Interpreters follow this kind of pattern as well, which is why we are practicing so much with structures and lists.
I feel like there was something else I was going to mention in this post, but my mind has been addled by the act of stripping wallpaper. No doubt, it will occur to me sometime a week from Saturday...
Based on the lecture yesterday, I recorded a very exciting screencast. By emphasizing this statement, I hope to make it true.
We will spend plenty more time on these ideas, but I thought I'd see if this is useful to you. I am aware of the following shortcomings:
So, it's an experiment. Let me know if this was valuable to you, and if you would prefer if I tried to fix some of those inconveniences. Suggestions for how to fix those annoyances are welcome.
Onions from mjadud on Vimeo.
An initial foray into data structures that refer to themselves. Explores the excitement of onions and onion-cores.
We in the department have a quick poll for you.
We are working on the course schedules for next year, and wonder if a course on Compilers (CMPSC 420) would be of interest. Compilers tends to follow on naturally from a course in languages, and you get to focus in on how we transform a language from source to binary.
If you'd visit the blog post, and take a quick poll, that would be great.
UPDATE: It turns out, the magic-poll-software I experimented with did not work as expected. I've bombarded you with another email instead. I've learned something today.
I've linked in the materials from class today (the quiz, answers, and code from my on-screen examples (points and elephants and snakes, oh my!).
I will point out that Chapter 6 of HtDP is a good source for information on structures in PLT Scheme. I will not be explicitly "assigning" this material for you to read. That said, it is very readable, and I recommend it as a resource if you want to augment my examples from class.
Section 6.3, in particular, talks about data definitions, and provides a number of exercises you could work through. We'll be doing some of these kinds of problems in lab, so no hurry... but I want you to realize that the resource is there.
In light of our discussion regarding principles and evaluation on Friday, I've made a first attempt at defining what your portfolios might look like at the end of the semester. I say "first draft" because I want you to read it (carefully) and help me see where it is still too vague, not challenging enough, etc.
I will naturally be revisiting this as well. However, this is a conversation and collaboration—your input is valued.
Guido van Rossum, the original designer/developer behind Python, is writing up a history of the language in a series of weblog posts.
http://python-history.blogspot.com/
I would like to encourage you to follow this weblog throughout the semester. The right-hand column of the course weblog now contains links to the last five posts on Guido's blog.
Because I'm a mean person, I wanted to bring your attention to the course schedule. Specifically, my intention is for you to be giving presentations during the final class periods before spring break. While this is not as stress-inducing as holding an examination on the day before break, it will carry weight in the final weighting of grades. (As of the time I wrote this, I still haven't finished assigning a weighting to everything in the course, but you can click on the link if you want to.)
In short, I would prefer if you started spring break after classes end, not before.
PS. The side-effect of automatically forwarding the weblog content to the mailing list is that messages lack a salutation and some kind of signature. My hope is that the timely flow of the information to you, as well as the long-term archival of said information on the weblog both serve to be more valuable than the (seemingly) impersonal nature of the message.
PPS. This might be paranoia on my part. In truth, some people say I worry too much. That, of course, worries me.
This is the first message you'll receive that has been published to the course weblog, but routed (automatically) to the course mailing list. My intention is for the weblog to provides an easily accessible archive of all of the messages sent. I route them to the mailing list so you won't have to worry about missing important information. You can yell at me in person is this is not desirable for some reason.
The actual point of this message, however, is to let y'all know what a spiral-bound copy of the course text costs when obtained through the print shop. If you have not yet requested a paper copy of the text, and still want one, the cost is $16.10. Drop me a note if you want a hard copy of the course text at this price, and I'll put in a request for them to run some. You can let me know on the first day of class.
