From leavens@cs.iastate.edu Fri Jan 31 08:38:09 2003 Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 08:28:18 -0600 (CST) From: Gary T. Leavens To: Chris Miller Cc: cs362s@cs.iastate.edu Subject: Re: Project Idea... in violation? Hi Chris, On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Chris Miller wrote: > For a project idea, I was thinking about a simple digital circuit designing > tool in which the user could place simple components and connect them > together with "wires" (probably graphically). The system would then be able > to evaluate the digital circuit outputs given a set of inputs. I realize > that there are already software suites out there that do this kind of thing > (like Altera's MaxPlus II and others..). Would this be too much in > violation of C1? > > >C1. That the system should not already be implemented as a computer > program. > > In particular, you should not have access to a the design of the > > system, a working version of the system or source code that > > implements the system. (If you did, you could use the existing > > system to tell you what all the requirements are, or you could use > > the implementation as your project.) > > Many of your examples have "existing systems" as well. How new or original > does the system have to be? > > I think the circuit simulation program would be a great Object Oriented > design to implement, and would be fun to do! The task would also be a big > challenge since I had never seen Java before this class... We'll interpret C1 in the sense that you shouldn't plan a project that is to make a clone of an existing program. Thus, if your circuit simulation system will have differences from existing systems, then the fact that others have done something similar shouldn't stop you. What you should do is to briefly explain how the goals of your system will be different. > P.S. How big are our project groups going to be? The teams will be either 3 or 4 people. -- Gary T. Leavens Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University 229 Atanasoff Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1041 USA http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens phone: +1-515-294-1580 ------------------------------------------- From leavens@cs.iastate.edu Wed Feb 5 15:57:29 2003 Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 15:57:06 -0600 (CST) From: Gary T. Leavens To: Adam Sanford Cc: Staff for Com S 362 Subject: Re: Easy Question Adam, The variable System.in correpsonds most closely to cin in C++. On Wed, 5 Feb 2003, Adam Sanford wrote: > After reading these books, and sun.java.com, and MSDN, I still can't come up > with Java's counterpart to C++ cin statement. I see lots of BufferInputs, and > other things that just seem pretty lengthy to get something from the keyboard > when compaired to C++. Is there a simple keyword included with java.io or some > other library? -- Gary T. Leavens Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University 229 Atanasoff Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1041 USA http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens phone: +1-515-294-1580 ---------------------------------------------------- From leavens@cs.iastate.edu Thu Feb 6 08:01:36 2003 Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 08:01:05 -0600 (CST) From: Gary T. Leavens Cc: Staff for Com S 362 Subject: Re: /*@ non_null @*/ comments? Hi Dean, On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Dean Lin wrote: > private /*@ non_null @*/ TimeOfDay start = new TimeOfDay(8,00); > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > You said this one is for junit framework. Should we write kind of this one > javadoc in our exam? Ah, this is a JML annotation, not a javadoc. These are always found in between the special /*@ ... @*/ or after a //@ comment marker. This one means that the variable start is never null. You aren't responsible for writing such JML annotation comments in your code. What I wanted from you for comments on field declarations is just a javadoc comment saying what the purpose of the field is. Like: /** The start time of this appointment. */ private TimeOfDay start = new TimeOfDay(8,00); This explains what you intended the field for. Does that help? -- Gary T. Leavens Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University 229 Atanasoff Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1041 USA http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens phone: +1-515-294-1580 ------------------------------------------------------------- From leavens@cs.iastate.edu Thu Feb 6 15:11:11 2003 Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 15:10:47 -0600 (CST) From: Gary T. Leavens To: Chris Miller Cc: Staff for Com S 362 Subject: Re: Project - Demonstration Requirements Hi Chris, On Thu, 6 Feb 2003 cbmiller@iastate.edu wrote: > What kind of requirements are there for the final project demonstration (ie - > how are you going to test for successful completion of the programming > project). No, it doesn't have to be completely finished at the end of class (most aren't). > For example, a suggested project is "A robotic control system for > printed circuit board chip stuffing(i.e., a factory control system)". How > would we go about actually testing our design for such a project if we don't > have a physical robot or factory to experiment with. Would the requirements > of the project need to fit some standard for a robotic arm (parallel port > output sequences or something?), or could we define our own port output > requirements...? What other kinds of feedback, other than a GUI can we have > without having an actual device to interface with. No, you would simulate the actual factory and devices. You could define your own port output requirements, although the real thing might be more interesting... > A program that operates things outside of the computer would be really > interesting to me, but testing it could be a challenge. Yes, in general you should be able to simulate the environment and test the signals that go between the interface and the device(s). Of course, it would be more fun to have a real device... -- Gary T. Leavens Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University 229 Atanasoff Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1041 USA http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens phone: +1-515-294-1580 ------------------------------------------------- From leavens@cs.iastate.edu Fri Feb 7 23:54:39 2003 Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 23:49:04 -0600 (CST) From: Gary T. Leavens To: David A. Avila Cc: Staff for Com S 362 Subject: Re: web page Hi David, On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, David A. Avila wrote: > I'm having trouble with the form that the URL has to be. Right know I can't > make it to show as http....../~username/cs362/vision.html > I made a homepage.html a link in it to a cs362.html and from there a link to > vision.html but it appears as http......./~username/vision.html, > how can I make the cs362 appear as you want it? You have to put the file named vision.html inside the directory cs362, so that the name of the file on Unix is... cs362/vision.html under your home directory. -- Gary T. Leavens Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University 229 Atanasoff Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1041 USA http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens phone: +1-515-294-1580 ------------------------------------------ From leavens@cs.iastate.edu Sat Feb 8 13:01:21 2003 Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 13:00:08 -0600 (CST) From: Gary T. Leavens To: Brian Dexter Allen Cc: Staff for Com S 362 Subject: Re: CS 362 Project Questions. Hi Brian, On Sat, 8 Feb 2003, Brian Dexter Allen wrote: > Prof. Leavens-- > > A couple of quick questions on the upcoming project proposals. You said in > class, IIRC, that the projects should be done using Java. Is that a hard > requirement, or, if a given project were more suited to another OO language, > C++ in particular due to 3rd-party API availability, would it be an option for > development? That is a hard requirement. It's necessary for the grading and useful for other things in the class. If you have something that needs C++, please pick something else. > Also, I'm a bit worried about the scope of the projects I'm considering-- I > don't really have any sense for how much time the average team member will be > able to contribute. What's a good estimate for amount of time a member will > be willing to contribute? I imagine it varies widely, but I was hoping you > could provide me a rule-of-thumb to base scope estimates on. An average team member would contribute about 6-10 hours per week, about what you'd expect to do for homework in a programming class. Note that you don't have to be able to finish the project this semester. Most people don't completely finish their projects. It's more important that you can start it and get something done. > Finally, I've got a couple of ideas that I'm thinking about-- is it reasonable > to bounce them off you for feasiblity, scope and appropriateness feedback? > > Many thanks. Sure, that's fine. -- Gary T. Leavens Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University 229 Atanasoff Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1041 USA http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens phone: +1-515-294-1580 ------------------------------------------------- From leavens@cs.iastate.edu Sat Feb 8 13:01:34 2003 Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 13:01:04 -0600 (CST) From: Gary T. Leavens To: Dean Lin Cc: Staff for Com S 362 Subject: Re: project vision web pages Dean, On Sat, 8 Feb 2003, Dean Lin wrote: > Should we finish our web pages before we send the email to you? Yes, that is best. -- Gary T. Leavens Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University 229 Atanasoff Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1041 USA http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens phone: +1-515-294-1580 ---------------------------------------------- From leavens@cs.iastate.edu Tue Feb 11 15:32:39 2003 Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 15:32:00 -0600 (CST) From: Gary T. Leavens To: Staff for Com S 362 Subject: Student feedback (from web) Hi all, A student writes in the anonymous feedback form: "Homework is too hard to do for someone who is not familiar to JAVA. Just like me, I don't even know the syntax of some of the code. I have seek help from the book and also some webpages. I still have to spend a lot of time on some simple tasks just because I don't know the syntax. I hope you would teach more about JAVA in class or give more tips in writing JAVA in the HW. In hw1, I don't know (!outFile.createNewFile()) can be used in this way. I hope you would consider more of the people who don't JAVA before taking this class." If you are having trouble with Java, then please see either me or Tongjie, and we can help. The syntax for Java isn't something I'm going to go over in detail, because I don't think that would be helpful to most people. You should buy a book on Java, or look at the details on-line at http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/j.title.doc.html The class average for the first two homeworks was 82.8%. This tells me that we've got the difficulty about right on the homeworks for Java. It's an important skill to be able to pick up and learn a new language quickly. -- Gary T. Leavens Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University 229 Atanasoff Hall, Ames, Iowa 50011-1041 USA http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~leavens phone: +1-515-294-1580 ------------------------------------------------------