Project p3 ratings about 113 responses 3 1HoursAlone: 5 1HoursAlone: 1 or less hours 9 1HoursAlone: 2 hours 10 1HoursAlone: 3 hours 9 1HoursAlone: 4 hours 7 1HoursAlone: 5 hours 7 1HoursAlone: 6 hours 6 1HoursAlone: 7 hours 8 1HoursAlone: 8 hours 3 1HoursAlone: 9 hours 11 1HoursAlone: 10 hours 8 1HoursAlone: 12 hours 3 1HoursAlone: 13 hours 4 1HoursAlone: 14 hours 12 1HoursAlone: 15-17 hours 3 1HoursAlone: 18-20 hours 3 1HoursAlone: 21-25 hours 1 1HoursAlone: 26-30 hours 2 1HoursAlone: 30 or more hours 38 1HoursWithPartner: 2 1HoursWithPartner: 1 or less hours 6 1HoursWithPartner: 2 hours 4 1HoursWithPartner: 3 hours 11 1HoursWithPartner: 4 hours 6 1HoursWithPartner: 5 hours 5 1HoursWithPartner: 6 hours 9 1HoursWithPartner: 7 hours 5 1HoursWithPartner: 8 hours 2 1HoursWithPartner: 9 hours 7 1HoursWithPartner: 10 hours 2 1HoursWithPartner: 11 hours 3 1HoursWithPartner: 12 hours 2 1HoursWithPartner: 13 hours 2 1HoursWithPartner: 14 hours 5 1HoursWithPartner: 15-17 hours 3 1HoursWithPartner: 18-20 hours 1 1HoursWithPartner: 21-25 hours 1 1HoursWithPartner: 30 or more hours 1 3 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 1 4 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 4 5 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 5 6 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 5 7 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 11 8 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 6 9 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 8 10 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 5 11 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 10 12 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 4 13 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 6 14 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 12 15 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 5 16 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 1 17 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 5 18 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 2 19 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 6 20 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 3 21 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 4 22 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 3 23 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 1 24 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 2 26 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 3 30 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 1 60 hours on P3 (but not P3.4) alone plus with partner 20 1P3.4HoursAlone: 32 1P3.4HoursAlone: 1 or less hours 13 1P3.4HoursAlone: 2 hours 15 1P3.4HoursAlone: 3 hours 10 1P3.4HoursAlone: 4 hours 5 1P3.4HoursAlone: 5 hours 4 1P3.4HoursAlone: 6 hours 4 1P3.4HoursAlone: 7 hours 2 1P3.4HoursAlone: 8 hours 2 1P3.4HoursAlone: 9 hours 2 1P3.4HoursAlone: 10 hours 2 1P3.4HoursAlone: 15-17 hours 1 1P3.4HoursAlone: 21-25 hours 1 1P3.4HoursAlone: 26-30 hours 1 1P3.4HoursAlone: 30 or more hours 51 1P3.4HoursWithPartner: 31 1P3.4HoursWithPartner: 1 or less hours 11 1P3.4HoursWithPartner: 2 hours 8 1P3.4HoursWithPartner: 3 hours 5 1P3.4HoursWithPartner: 4 hours 2 1P3.4HoursWithPartner: 5 hours 1 1P3.4HoursWithPartner: 7 hours 1 1P3.4HoursWithPartner: 8 hours 2 1P3.4HoursWithPartner: 10 hours 1 1P3.4HoursWithPartner: 26-30 hours 1 1P3.4HoursWithPartner: 30 or more hours 7 1 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 23 2 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 11 3 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 20 4 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 6 5 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 7 6 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 7 7 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 3 8 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 3 9 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 2 10 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 1 11 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 1 14 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 1 15 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 1 16 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 1 21 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 1 25 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 1 27 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 1 32 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 1 60 hours on P3.4 alone and with partner 4 2KnowProcessing-Input: 2 2KnowProcessing-Input: 1) very bad 7 2KnowProcessing-Input: 2) bad 43 2KnowProcessing-Input: 3) ok 43 2KnowProcessing-Input: 4) good 15 2KnowProcessing-Input: 5) very good 2 2LearnProcessing-Input: 3 2LearnProcessing-Input: 1) very bad 8 2LearnProcessing-Input: 2) bad 50 2LearnProcessing-Input: 3) ok 45 2LearnProcessing-Input: 4) good 6 2LearnProcessing-Input: 5) very good 2 3KnowWhile-Loops: 2 3KnowWhile-Loops: 1) very bad 4 3KnowWhile-Loops: 2) bad 32 3KnowWhile-Loops: 3) ok 55 3KnowWhile-Loops: 4) good 19 3KnowWhile-Loops: 5) very good 2 3LearnWhile-Loops: 1 3LearnWhile-Loops: 1) very bad 7 3LearnWhile-Loops: 2) bad 40 3LearnWhile-Loops: 3) ok 55 3LearnWhile-Loops: 4) good 9 3LearnWhile-Loops: 5) very good 2 4KnowFunctions-and-Scripts: 3 4KnowFunctions-and-Scripts: 1) very bad 17 4KnowFunctions-and-Scripts: 2) bad 41 4KnowFunctions-and-Scripts: 3) ok 33 4KnowFunctions-and-Scripts: 4) good 18 4KnowFunctions-and-Scripts: 5) very good 2 4LearnFunctions-and-Scripts: 4 4LearnFunctions-and-Scripts: 1) very bad 16 4LearnFunctions-and-Scripts: 2) bad 45 4LearnFunctions-and-Scripts: 3) ok 32 4LearnFunctions-and-Scripts: 4) good 15 4LearnFunctions-and-Scripts: 5) very good 5 5KnowIntrospection: 4 5KnowIntrospection: 1) very bad 34 5KnowIntrospection: 2) bad 41 5KnowIntrospection: 3) ok 28 5KnowIntrospection: 4) good 2 5KnowIntrospection: 5) very good 4 5LearnIntrospection: 3 5LearnIntrospection: 1) very bad 29 5LearnIntrospection: 2) bad 55 5LearnIntrospection: 3) ok 20 5LearnIntrospection: 4) good 3 5LearnIntrospection: 5) very good 4 6KnowVectorization: 10 6KnowVectorization: 1) very bad 42 6KnowVectorization: 2) bad 47 6KnowVectorization: 3) ok 7 6KnowVectorization: 4) good 4 6KnowVectorization: 5) very good 3 6LearnVectorization: 9 6LearnVectorization: 1) very bad 27 6LearnVectorization: 2) bad 54 6LearnVectorization: 3) ok 14 6LearnVectorization: 4) good 7 6LearnVectorization: 5) very good 9 7ConnectionsPrepare: 20 7ConnectionsPrepare: 0) didn't know it was posted 2 7ConnectionsPrepare: 1) very bad 25 7ConnectionsPrepare: 2) bad 45 7ConnectionsPrepare: 3) ok 12 7ConnectionsPrepare: 4) good 1 7ConnectionsPrepare: 5) very good 2 7ExPrepare: 6 7ExPrepare: 1) very bad 41 7ExPrepare: 2) bad 52 7ExPrepare: 3) ok 13 7ExPrepare: 4) good 2 7LecPrepare: 15 7LecPrepare: 1) very bad 39 7LecPrepare: 2) bad 49 7LecPrepare: 3) ok 8 7LecPrepare: 4) good 1 7LecPrepare: 5) very good 3 7SecPrepare: 7 7SecPrepare: 1) very bad 18 7SecPrepare: 2) bad 56 7SecPrepare: 3) ok 29 7SecPrepare: 4) good 1 7SecPrepare: 5) very good 10 9Overall: 1) very bad 36 9Overall: 2) bad 49 9Overall: 3) ok 15 9Overall: 4) good 3 9Overall: 5) very good general comments from tky: + p3 was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long, for which we apologize. + don't spend endless hours torturing yourself: if you've spent a few hours working on something without progress, then come in to get help from us! this has two benefits: + this should reduce the amount and time and effort you need to spend + if we see lots of students with questions, we'll realize something is wrong and be able to take corrective action sooner. + part of programming is understanding the problem specification. + this typically means you need to read a problem write-up multiple times. + mathematical and computer science, like other fields, has its own jargon and terminology which you must learn. ---- q> The project was very good, in that it was rigorous. However, it was q> rigorous to the point where I was unable to complete all of it, simply q> because I ran out of time. I'm not sure if the projects are always q> written to be completed; they may be similar to prelims in this way. projects intended to be of manageable length and difficulty, so that they can be completed. ---- q> I felt that part 5 was entirely too long. It was like an entire q> project by itself;I spent more time on it than all the other sections q> combined and still did not finish it. Although i rechecked lecture q> notes and the Matlab book, I could not come up with an acceptable q> substitute for loops. I think that at the least there should have q> been some warning that part 5 would take a long time. here are some of the ideas i expected people to use: p3.5.1: 2/06 lecture, e.g. the examples starting with $x([1 2]) = x([11 10])$ p3.5.3: tibor janosi's post "problem 2 (prelim) & character manipulation" on the newsgroup, particularly solution #5 to T1.2: x = isspace([' ' str]) & isletter([str ' ']); str(x) = upper(str(x)); q> Also, the fact q> that we had to name our variables exactly as you do is irritating, I am q> quite capable of naming my own variables and functions, and when I do I q> would even be able to remember what I called them. often programming requires meeting specifications. q> Finally, now that we are submitting online couldn't we eliminate q> the comment block with our name etc.? Just submit it once per q> project rather than 20 times? no, but it should not be hard to copy/paste the header block. ---- q> I did Parts 1,2, and 3 with a good amount of ease (meaning, although q> it was time consuming it wasn't too difficult and I knew what I q> was doing). Part 5 however, I found very confusing. I spent hours q> staring at the screen and looking through notes to try to figure q> out what to do. I was able to do certain parts of it based on what q> I had seen in lecture and section. But, I felt really clueless on q> other parts. I still don't understand lookup tables and have no idea q> how to use logical arrays. I feel that a little more time should q> have been spent on these (and other non-loop forms) during class q> since they seem to be pretty confusing. hm. i would expect that running the examples from lecture sketches and playing around with them --making changes-- would have taught much of the techniques required for part 5. ---- q> It took me nearly 20 hours to finish the whole thing, everything. q> Looking back, the project was definitely too long... plus WAY too q> many files to keep track of. The exercises and connections weren't q> helpful at all too; only the newsgroup and the hints in the project q> 3 page did help. Recommendations: perhaps cut down on number of q> questions(4?), a lot fewer, but longer files to submit(~5 to 10?), q> and maybe more relevant ways to "guide" us. Yet, despite all this, q> the project itself had a number of excellent questions and required q> lots of good CS thinking. ---- q> I would like to comment on the "style" of the project assignments. q> A big problem with the assignments (based on the number of q> clarification quesitons in the newsgroup) is the clarity of the q> questions asked. When a problem is two pages long and deals with q> things like differential equations and conanical form which we have q> little or no experience with, it is very easy to get lost in the q> wording of the problem. I would like to propose a format that I think q> would work very well in future problems: q> Background: explains the idea behind the problem (most of the first q> page of the celestial problem) q> Tasks: gives detailed explination of our task in simple form (bullet q> points are very nice). List all of the parameters/constants in q> one place. q> Examples: The most important example would be a sample input/function q> call and it's expected output/return. This will help us understand q> what we are trying to do/ gives us a goal, helps us understand what q> type of value goes in and comes out and also give us a test case for q> our function/script. q> Another type of example that is nice is the type used in the polynomial q> question: clarifying the concepts behind the problem. When you q> use these it would be very helpful if they were accompanied by a q> comment like: THESE ARE EXAMPLES OF CONCEPT, NOT SAMPLE INPUTS AND q> OUTPUTS."(if you do nothing else I sugested, please "comment" your q> examples like this. the examples used in the polynomial problem, q> as writen, confused me more that it helped. "Commenting" will also q> set a good example of how well you expect our code to be commented) ---- q> This project was WAY TOO HARD!!!! I feel like we had to learn how q> to do everything our own. ---- q> too much... ---- q> Overall, I thought that this project took too much time. The problems q> themselves were challenging and demonstrated the difficulty of the q> material, but I did not feel I had enough time to finish. Some of q> the stress associated with this particular project arose in that over q> the weekend I was on an athletic trip, cutting a good chunk of time q> for working on the project. ---- q> There were two very hard part of the projects. The first is we didn't q> really learn the difference between functions and scripts, passing q> variables through one not the other, etc. So, after failing to get q> a working function for parts 2 and 3 I went to office hours and they q> cleared this up a little. Secondly, in lecture, office hours, and on q> the newsgroups making a table (for the gene code in part 5) to have q> $a$ compliment $t$ etc. and while i have many drawings of a table, i q> didnt know the matlab syntax to actually make one because everyone was q> so focused on the concept (which I understood) that they completely q> forgot to tell us syntax. ---- q> Waaaaaayyyyyyyyy too long -- I mean, exceptionally long. It is q> rediculous to expect that much effort to be put into a project worth q> so little. about "worth so little": we expect most people to learn programming from doing the project and thus we draw material from projects for use on our tests. ---- q> Teaching us anything about how to do 5 would have been helpful. q> Also, what is the purpose in avoiding loops altogether? I don't q> understand when that will be necessary in any real situation. three reasons: + often, matlab runs vectorized code substantially faster than loops. + in addition to thinking about things at the "low" loop-and-element-by-element level, it is also useful to learn to think about things at "higher" vector level. + once one gets used to vectorized code, it can be clearer than the corresponding loop code. ---- q> Where to begin....First of all the project was entirely too long and q> convoluted. The lengthy, esoteric introductions (a page and a half q> for number 3!) were useless and made the problems more complicated q> than they already were. The total amount of time I spent on this q> project was far too great. CS 100 is not the only class I'm taking q> this semester and it hardly seems fair to assume that busy students q> will have that much time to devote to just ONE COURSE. This project q> fell in a week filled with prelims, papers and other assignments which q> I understand is not your problem. Regardless, to expect that much q> effort and time from us is unrealistic. In addition, I think more time q> should be spent on your part preparing these projects, the innumerable q> revisions and explanations make trying to do these things even worse. q> It seems as though sometimes you don't coordinate what will be used q> or required in the projects with what we will be learning in lecture. q> Its useless to assign stuff that we won't be able to do until two q> days before its due. That is all for now. i will accept some blame for not making it clear that one could start doing useful work on the project even without understanding how to write functions. ---- q> I thought this project was a lot more fair in length than the last q> one because you removed P3.4. I also thought that these questions q> were a little bit more manageable but it would have been good to see q> the demo before the project was due. ---- q> Even with programming experience, I had to spend a lot of time q> tinkering around with the different built-in functions. Much of my q> time was spent learning things that I feel should have been taught q> in lecture, but were not. ---- q> Besides being excessively long, project 3 was the first project q> that really put our programming skills to the test. I would have q> appreciated an earlier notice that part 4 would not be included as I q> spent a lot of time trying to figure it out over this past weekend. q> But, seeing as how that will be part of the next project, I really q> can't complain. Also, the background for each problem could have q> been greatly scaled down. I think all of the reading that we had to q> do on part 3 specifically just made it more confusing. Overall, it q> was a good test of knowledge, but poorly planned. ---- q> P4 really wasn't that hard, it's only the division that was a little q> tricky, but it's still a lather-rinse-repeat process. ---- q> I found this project to be extremely frustrating. The problem was q> the length; I felt like I was forever doing cs. I think I could have q> handled it better if it were perhaps half as long. P3.4 was my main q> problem- I thought that should have been its own project. I kept q> trying things but having it not work and it just went on and on and on. ---- q> I didn't feel I could do all of this project with the knowledge of q> programming that I have. I had to get a lot of help and hints from q> other sources. ---- q> I thought that this project was rather long, and we needed some q> additional materials from lecture before we could start some parts. ---- q> I had lots of problems getting the processing input and the function q> scripts. I didnt feel the project nor our preparation explained q> them very well at all. Was a bit too long, I think it would have q> been better to have a smaller assignment and really concentrate on q> writing a GOOD program - I feel as though as soon as we get some q> that works that we have to go with it because of the time pressure ---- q> P3 was too long, it's good P3.4 was taken off. There were too many q> "Connections" hints that told us to simply look stuff up on our own q> or to figure it out ourselves. We're supposed to be in a class to q> learn these functions, not to discover them all on our own. ---- q> The projects should reflect things that were learned in class and not q> new material. Most of the problems were reasonable, but presenting q> relevant material in class just two days before the project is due, q> wasn't the best plan at all. Also, most all of the questions were q> worded to be very confusing (as evident by the many questions on the q> newsgroup just for this project alone). The question writer has some q> idea for the questions in mind, but fails to put what they want into q> clear and easy-to-understand words. This fact hurts the project that q> would otherwise contain "good" questions. ---- q> Although part 4 was removed as part of this project, it wasn't removed q> until Tuesday, which on a two week project was kind of late. q> The $hist$ function was hard to figure out using the $help$ and q> experimenting. Some discussion in section or somewhere else would q> have been very helpful. ---- q> I thought the project was a bit advanced for the knowledge we have q> had...it took a lot of time and a lot of outside reading as well. I q> think a more effective project would be one that correlates to material q> presented in lecture and section (unlike 2-d rand and sum functions) ---- q> This project was extremely long and difficult, even without P4. I q> understand that projects are supposed to be challenging, but this q> one seemed a little unreasonable. It was very difficult because I q> didn't feel like I had a good grasp on material such as functions and q> scripts until lecture today (2/22), which made doing parts 2 and 3 very q> difficult. Although I would say that I learned a lot form doing this q> project, it didn't seem like the best way to learn the material. It was q> very frustrating and discouraging, especially since I felt so confident q> after completing Project 2, which was challenging, but possible. ---- q> In comparison to the exercises, lecture, or section the project was q> definitely challenging. I learned a lot though... and I realized that q> there is just as much experimentation into doing these problems, q> as knowledge gained from class. Because I worked alone, and spent q> hours on the problems, I feel that I am definitely prepared for the q> prelim. I thought that the project was too long, although I would q> have prefered taking out the last problem instead of problem 4. The q> poly functions were challenging and interesting, but part 5 seemed q> just plain annoying to me. ---- q> i know that you probably want us to experiment with code and learning q> things by ourselves however, i find it very frustrating when we cover q> something like logical arrays in lecture for a very short time, and q> then are expected to be able to write a part of a project on it. i q> just get very frustrated sometimes because it feels like you started q> to go over something but didn't really cover it completely and with q> my limited programming knowledge, i can't move to the next level. q> i think that the projects are the most successful when they reinforce q> what you covered in lecture and ask us to take it a step further. q> but i think they fail when they ask us to completely approach a q> new topic and learn it ourselves. that is when these projects get q> frustrating and people get discouraged. programming isnt' that hard q> once we are introduced to how to do it. ---- q> The project with P4 really was much too long. Leaving out q> that section made it a lot more reasonable, especially since q> a lot of us were scratching our heads over $divpoly$. I find q> it bizarre how a lot of times the lecture describing the stuff q> we have to know comes after the project is due; e.g. today the q> whole lecture was about calling functions, which we had to deal q> with in the project. But otherwise I guess it was more or less q> educational, although I'd appreciate it if we're given more than q> nine days to do it. 2 weeks would be good. If I recall rightly q> we were given the project on Tuesday of last week and had to hand q> it in on Thursday. For a project of that length, especially the q> original length, it would be great if we had 2 weeks to do it. q> This is especially true because a lot of changes were made to the q> project, e.g. instructions/descriptions modified for clarity and q> tips/hints posted along the way. ---- q> The project was only made difficult by the fact that we did not know q> how do do most of the material. Had it been taught, it would have q> been ok. ---- q> It is hard to know most of it, It would be nice if we had more examples q> to look at and maybe more hints I dont know... Its hard to figure q> out what I need to do at the begining so It takes me time to figure q> that or by asking! ---- q> Long project. Extremely hard for people without programming q> experience. Fairly hard for people with experience. And i wasted q> a whole day trying to get part 4 so i lost alot of time. I think q> we should learn everything we need to know in lecture be4 starting q> the project because in part 5 there were things which we didnt know q> until later. ---- q> It was frustrating how the project got changed so much. The first day q> the project was posted, I spent like 4 hours completing the original q> part A but then that was deleted from the project. Granted, it will q> make the next project a little easier but still. Also, I didn't feel q> we knew enough about functions. The book was invaluable and I can see q> how anyone who didn't look at the book would have had a very hard time q> with the functions. We didn't go over them until lecture, today, but, q> maybe that was intentional. I don't know. ---- q> this was way too long and hard ---- q> i think project 3 is kinda too hard...>< i've spent a lot of time q> doing it...but the program still doesn't seem to work out fine ~.~ q> i hope the next project will be easier...~~ (and hopefully more hints~) ---- q> This project took up a ridiculous amount of time. I didn't have q> time the whole weekend to do hw for any other class. I was in my q> partners' room every day all day for 3 days in a row. ---- q> This project utilized many important key programming concepts in q> matlab, however, it did not coincide well at all with the material q> that was presented in class. In addition, sections were focusing on q> prelim 1 rather than on the project which made them also ineffective q> for understanding what was going on. The textbook is confusing to read q> and I, probably like most people, have a hard time figuring out what it q> is saying ( and of course you can't ask it questions). This all said, q> for people like me, with no programming experience, this project seemed q> like an impossible feet. I understand that this course is suppose to q> assume no programming experience, however, when material on how to do q> a project is presented after the project is due (or two days before the q> project is due), people who have no programming experience are usually q> the ones who end up working up until the last minute (not necessarily q> b/c they started late, but ratehr b/c they didn't know how to start),I q> hope that in the future the presentation of the lecture material will q> coincide with the project assignments in a more timely manner. ---- q> Although I tried to start the project rather early, there was very q> little that I could do with the knowledge that I had from both lecture q> and section. The project itself was long and hard to grasp from what q> we had learned. ---- q> I think this project was much harder than project 2. For each q> individual tasks, it would be tremendously helpful if there is a q> suggested way to start off the code, but to award style points for q> coming up with more efficient code. ---- q> The materials covered in lecture are not sufficient to do the project q> especially when they are not taught in time for us to do the projects q> efficiently. I know finding out how to do things by myself is a good q> way of learning but that is certainly not efficient and considering q> most things are not even given mentions in lectures. I love CS, its q> fun but its taking up too much of my time, leaving little for other q> courses. Debugging takes hours... ---- q> I spent really long time on this project, but it was really good q> project and it taught me so many things. some of the sections like q> 3.4 were kindda hard to figure out, but I was very happy when I q> achieved it. ---- q> The lectures didn't help much at all. I spent mosst of my time q> looking through the book in order to hope to find some ideas on how q> to do the project. I was hoping that in the Tuesday lecture some q> hints or advice would be given regarding the project, but none was. q> I was extrememyl disappointed about this. I spent so much time q> working on this project, and I didn't feel that the class prepared q> me at all for it. ---- q> Part 4 was good practice, but in combination with the other parts q> made the project too long. Part four and just a few other parts q> would have been nice. Also, the guidelines for submission of the q> parts should have been made clear earlier. ---- q> Vectorisation was quite hard. q> The project (incl. part4) would have been far too long. It was a lot q> of work. ---- q> Overall, the project would have been much easier if they were better q> introduced in lecture. It is understandable that we should discover q> some things on our own but it is harder for people with no or little q> computer experience to understand the terminology used by the program. ---- q> many of the things (like some of the functions) we need in the project q> were not covered in class and that gave us a difficult time. although q> some of the things were covered, they were covered only on tuesday q> and that didnt give us enough time to work on it. ---- q> Not a bad project, however the wording gets very confusing in the q> problem descriptions. ---- q> Although very time consuming, the project was fun and interesting. The q> writing of the programs was rather easy (except for part3) because q> we were given a lot of hints and all the steps were pretty detailed, q> but the debugging was very long. I suggest that in the next project, q> we are given more freedom to write programs that require more time q> for thinking about the algorithm than for trying to fix minor bugs. ---- q> I felt that this project was overwhelming. This is my first programming q> course, and i spent almost 20hours alone and with a partner completing q> this project excluding part4, which i felt was not even mentioned in q> lecture. I feel that lecture does not set up any of the steps to take q> to solve the problems or how to go about solving the problems. The q> lectures that are needed to do the projects seemt o come the week that q> the project is due, leaving little time for the inexpierneced. I found q> that i had to rely on my book mainly for help. Also, i beleive that q> the consultants in the computer lab are of poor help, many of them q> are unfamilar with matlab, and upon asking for help, they were very q> unaware of how to proceed and ended up taking a long time to answer q> a simple question. I feel that the assignments need to be a little q> shorter, and that the questions much clearer, it took me about thirty q> minutes to determine what one of the questions was asking for. i did q> learn a lot of programming techniques. ---- q> as a new programmer who has seen the concepts of programming for the q> first time, I thought this project was ridiculously hard.....close q> to impossible. The lectures did not at all prepare me for the level q> of dificulty seen on project#3. ---- q> could have used more hints in some of the questions, it was q> challenging, but manageable ---- q> I know that this course isn't suppossed to be easy, but this project q> was a bit obscene. Why can't we just be informed of the strategies q> and neccessary codes/commands. I love starring at a screen for a few q> hours trying the same five versions of a code over and over and writing q> notebooks full of alogorithims, but is it really neccessary? We learn q> the basics form lecture. Beyond that, we venture into a harsh world q> of a computer that works against much of our intuition. How about q> a helping hand? The code vectorization was particularly difficult. q> I don't even remember the lecture presentation on the topic, despite q> haveing been to and staying awake for all of the lectures thus far. q> When a questoin is posted to the newsgroup, can't we just get an q> answer, instead of a "think about this or that"? The reason those q> questions are posted is because the poster has already thought about q> the optoins to his wits end, and probably beyond. Keep in mind why q> most of the students in this class are here: requirements. I like q> the problem solving aspect and figuring out a functional tool that I q> create, but there must be a happy medium between nearly impossible and q> "everybody gets an A." ---- q> man, the project is kinda too hard and long, but i am glad that part q> 4 is excluded! ---- q> The project itself was very long and complicated, especially part 4. q> The details in the program specs were lacking, and it was confusing q> to understand, especially the celestial part and the part with the q> polynomials was especially boggling, even after rereading it several q> times and checking the newsgroups. ---- q> No part of this project was unreasonably hard, or particularly unfair. q> Everything was challenging. I appreciate the extra room extended on q> part 4. ---- q> It seemed as if Project 3 was a little too difficult. My partner q> and I spent a great deal of time working on it, and still we q> didn't fully or completely answer all of them. Winding down to q> the end, it was more of a "let's just get it done" task, then a q> "what can we learn from this, and are we doing it right" task. q> Also it seems that the lectures immediately before and immediately q> after the project was do taught information that would have helped q> greatly while doing the project. ---- q> i found this project to be very difficult. i didn't anticipate that i q> would be spending whole days working on it. i didn't feel i understood q> the information enough to do the tasks asked of me. ---- q> this project was way too long and too hard, i did not feel prepared q> for it ---- q> I've found that the time spent in lecture isn't very helpful q> for preparing me for the projects. We spend too much time on the q> irrelevant facts like tracing, i cover tracing because it is a fairly concrete model of how the computer works. i would claim that if one can't trace a program, then one can't understand the program. q> when we should be doing more examples q> of problems, where we should walk through a few problems with Matlab q> actually projected on the screen instead of handwritten code. After q> doing a couple examples, we should be given a few more complicated q> problems which we begin to set up in class and have to figure out on q> our own. I have had to learn how to do all the projects on my own. q> The questions are very vague and hard to understand what is desired q> for output, which makes it hard to come up with an algorithm. Also it q> would be useful to konw more functions, instead of having to search q> for them. I don't see the point of having to look up functions q> when it could be suggested to us. please let me know which functions you would have liked to know about for project 3. i believe i covered all the functions that i wanted students to use. q> We would still have to use the q> function correctly and write our own codes. The only part of this q> course that I find useful is the section, and only certain sections. q> I have attended a few different sections and some TAs are very helpful q> in answering my questions directly, while others seem to have trouble q> answering the question. it is indeed important to choose a section instructor whose explanations fit the way you understand things: different people have different ways of explaining and understanding. ---- q> I felt that the project was too long, and that i didn't really q> understand the last few parts. I think that the projects should be q> shorter and the there should be an emphasis on writing a good program, q> because it takes me a long time to write a program that works and i q> end up submitting code just because it's done or i'm out of time. i'd q> rather do less and understand it than to do more and not really know q> what i'm doing. ---- q> I think the class assumes that we've all had previous programming q> experience, when its suppose to be an introductory course. I feel q> that the course is going to fast, I have a hard time keeping up with q> the material. In addition, I feel that the real difficult concepts q> of matlab are not given as much time during lecture. ---- q> Sections should review the presented material and give an intro to q> the upcoming lecture topics. However, It usually talks about things q> that are not currently pertinent to the course. For example, we did q> not talk about the P3 until the day before it was due. Before that q> none of the topics from it were discussed in section. ---- q> Although it was very helpful that you took away one question of the q> project, the project itself was still very long and time consuming. q> The fact that it took my partner and I over 30 hours to do this project q> is a clear indication to me that we did not know the material well q> enough to complete the problems. Many other people that we spoke to q> the night before the project was due as we were finishing it up also q> said that they did not finish many parts of the project because they q> very simply didn't understand it and didn't even know how to word q> a question to post it on the newsgroup because they were so lost. q> Section usually helps much more than lecture, most likely because q> it is a smaller class and he goes into more depth into the parts we q> don't understand. ---- q> The project was a little repititive. It seems like we just do the q> same thing with a different problem, no real innovations in code q> are needed. It was too long too, until part 4 was taken out. Then it q> was ok. ---- q> I thought this project was hard, but doing it forced me to learn and q> improve MATLAB programming skills -- it wasn't impossible. But I q> would appreciate more coverage of material in lecture instead of such q> an emphasis on independent study. ---- q> I feel that this project expected us to know more than we had q> learned about prgramming. It was very difficult and time-taking and q> frustrating. I think it would have been a bit better if information q> on it was covered soemtime before 2/20/01. ---- q> As always the projects really help me understand and apply the q> material. But however, this project was really really long before q> you ommitted the fourth question. For the fourth part, I think q> the explanation of canonical terms was too brief and I still didn't q> understand what canonical really meant after reading it many times, q> until I went to office hours. Also, me and my partner assumed that we q> had to turn the polynomial into a vector. We spent two hours trying q> to turn a polynomial into a vector only to figure out that we didn't q> have to do this, and became so incredibly frustrated that we couldn't q> work on the project any more that night. My rating for this project q> would be "good" but it was just too long to say that. ---- q> The project was way too long and time consuming. It doesn't really q> emphasize on the technique we're supposed to use. What I mean is that q> there are other ways to get around to the solution without using what q> we're supposed to. I think the projects should be shorter and more q> focus on the functions/techniques that we're supposed to learn. ---- q> very very time consuming ---- q> It seems we are supposed to "discover" many functions on our own, q> and never clearly explained what they do. ? please let me know which functions you are referring to. q> I realize that program is q> best learned by practice, but most of the time was spent finding out q> what functions did, and then not even using them, very frustrating q> when work is piling up. what each function given through hints did. q> On-line submission was very smooth and easy to follow, except for q> the suggested save titles used "." which can not be used. ---- q> I have 2 main complaints about the project. First, the project was way q> too long. Second, I started the project early and completed several q> parts, but then found out later the the parts that I had already q> completed had been changed. This forced me to do a lot of extra work. ---- q> The project was much too difficult and intimidating. I spent a lot of q> time just doing the first two problems (which usually are the easier q> ones) and already got stuck. The only source that truly helped me q> work on this project was the professor and TA office hours. ---- q> thought this project was very hard. we weren't very prepared for it, q> especially the logical array stuff. also, the project was very long. ---- q> really long, the questions were strangely worded and were very lengthy q> to read. It usually took me a good 5 or 6 readthroughs to actually q> understand what you wanted accomplished and my time is sorta value to q> me.....I'd really appreciate clearer questions in future assignments. ---- q> This project was far too difficult for the knowledge we have. q> Not enough time was spent teaching code, while too much was spent q> teaching "theory." ---- q> Showing us things like functions the day after a project is due is not q> helpful at all. Also vectorizing was repeated trial and error until q> the right solution came up. We did go over truth tables in lecture q> but i don't remember them being applied into vectorization. For me q> the hardest part of the project is understanding what the question q> is asking. WHile that may be the hardest part of programming, the q> questions were practically unreadable to me until someone explained q> them to me ---- q> these projects are too hard for the amount of credit they are worth. q> this is supposed to be an introductory course and it is anything but. ---- q> Overall, I think that the project was ok. The biggest problem that q> I had was getting someone to help me with the project. I went to q> various people (professors- not THomas Yan) for help but noone was q> of any valuable help.