A reminder that tomorrow (1st of May) is the COMP3311 Final Exam.
Remember to check your allocated time and location before arriving at the exam:
https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~exam/23T1/seating/register.cgi/allocations/
Sample solutions for the 22T3 exam are now available.
The exam database is now available.
COMP3311 only has 23% response rate on the MyExperience evaluation. This is one of the lowest rates among large CSE courses. It would be nice to get to at least 40% response rate. If you haven't yet filled out the MyExperience survey, please do so ASAP.
There have been a number of questions in the Forum that suggest that many people still don't understand the exam setup. During the exam, you will be working in a restricted environment where "all" you have access to is
You do NOT have access to
All you need to do at the start of the exam is login using your zID/zPass and everything will be set up for you. All you need to do is read the exam paper and then start working on the questions.
What!?!? I've extended the term by one week ...
Unfortunately, no, but I do have some info on things to do this week:
Happy revision!
If you have been outside Sydney for the whole of 23T1 and won't be in Sydney on May 1, send me email and I will explain how your exam will work.
This is your last chance to let me know about this. If you don't tell me by Friday 28 April, I will assume that you will be attending the exam in person on May 1.
Non-attendance at the final exam, without special consideration or without discussing with me first, will get you a mark of zero for the exam.
Congratulations on making it this far ... Week 10 ... the final week ...
All that's left now is the Exam ...
I did warn you, didn't I? If enough people leave it to the last minute, you will kill vxdb2 . And you did.
Since vxdb2 has been relatively unusable since yesterday afternoon, I'll push the deadline back 24 hours (i.e. the new deadline is 23:59 Sat 15 April)
This will give the people who were trying to finish last night a chance to finish now, without penalty.
After that, penalties will start accruing at 0.2% per hour (i.e. 5% per day). And, after 23:59 Thu 20 April, the penalty becomes 100% (according to UNSW's stupid late penalty regime).
You will need to decide whether it's worth spending more time trying to finish all questions and get a larger late penalty or to submit just some of the questions earlier with a lesser late penalty.
Naturally, this "extension" will annoy the people who busted a gut trying to finish by the original deadline. But as they relax today, satisfied with a job well done, hopefully they won't feel too bad.
So far, there have been 350 submissions. Only 200 to go. The vxdb2 server seems to be running ok this afternoon, even with 100 PostgreSQL servers running. And I've had no problem ssh'ing to vxdb2.
A reminder: from outside CSE, use ssh d2.cse.unsw.edu.au, f rom within the CSE network (e.g. on a VLab server) use ssh nw-syd-vxdb2
It looks like some people are running vscode on vxdb2. This will not help other people get their work done.
You should run vscode (if you must) on the VLab servers e.g. vx01, vx02, vx03, ...
What's on in Week 09?
Assignment 2 help sessions will be running on Black Board Collaborate at the following times:
5-7 Tuesday
5-7 Wednesday
4-6 Thursday
4-7 Friday
The Week 08 Preview video is now available.
Quiz 5 will open on Monday 3 April at 9am and close on Friday 7 April.
Dylan will conduct an Assignment 2 Q&A session at Tuesday's lecture (2pm, CLB6)
Solutions for the Week 07 Tute Exercises are available.
The first 2 (out of 5) questions have been released for assignment 2. With another soon on its way.
Currently the plan is to release the 3rd question this morning, the 4th this afternoon, and the last question tomorrow morning.
There have also been a number of updates and fixes to the assignment data that you can view on the relevant page in the assignment specification. If you have previously downloaded the dump file you should grab a new copy and recreate your database.
Update:
The forth question is now available.
Update:
The fifth and last question is now available.
A couple of students noticed there was an error with the automarking for Q6.
We have rerun automarking with the corrected Q6.
This may have effected your mark.
Some students will have lost a mark.
If you received full marks (4/4) for Q6 previously this was, unfortunate, a mistake.
You will now receive a mark of 3/4 for Q6.
Some students will have gained a mark
If you have previously failed the Q6_D test there is a chance that your mark has increased.
Most students marks will be unchanged.
You can check your new marks on the Give Sturec website
NOTE: your feedback and automarking results will not be updated and will still show the previous automarking output.
Assignment 1 marks are now available for you to collect.
To view your mark (out of 12) for Assignment 1 you can head over to the
Give Sturec
website
To view feedback and comments you can run the command
3311 classrun -collect ass1
or
view the assignment on WebCMS
and use the "Collect Submission" tab
On the provisional exam timetable, the COMP3311 final exam will run in the CSE labs on Monday 1 May.
Might be relevant to people making travel plans.
UNSW expects you to be available for the entire exam period (Friday 28 April until Thursday 11 May).
I've been fiddling with the Slides and Videos to reflect the current schedule. If I've messed up any links, let me know.
The YouTube video from today is delayed. I need to build it from the Echo360 video, since my own camera wasn't behaving.
The Week 07 preview video is now available.
The solutions to the Week 05 tute exercises are also available.
Quiz 4 will be available at 9am Monday, due 11:59pm Friday.
Info on Assignment 2 (Pokemon database) will be released soon (due Friday Week 09).
This is a gentle reminder that assignment 1 is due in about 8 hours.
Remember to submit, here on WebCMS or with the
give
command, before Midnight tonight.
Please fill out the "Pokemon Familiarity" poll. This will determine how much background we'll need to give for the Assignment 2 database.
I have a ton of admin duties (meetings, etc) over the next two days. This means I won't be available to answer Forum questions or emails (especially if they're sent directly to me).
Dylan and the tutors have been doing a splendid job dealing with assignment queries, so I leave you in their capable hands.
And please stop your PostgreSQL servers when you log out of vxdb2. It will be under enough strain with all the last-minute assignment activity.
Good luck.
We will be running three help sessions in week05 for Assignment 1.
Monday 4pm - 7pm
Tuesday 10am - 12pm
Friday 4pm - 7pm
All help sessions will be on Blackboard Collaborate.
The Week 05 Preview video is available.
Week 04 tute solutions are available.
Keep/start working on Assignment 1.
Do
not
post questions including Ass1 code on the Forum;
email your question and code to cs3311@cse.unsw.edu.au
If you're not coping with this course, today is your last chance to withdraw without having to pay, and without having a fail appear on your transcript.
I've had a couple of questions on assignment 1 that are probably worth answering to a wider audience ...
"Can I use function XYZ in my solution?" ... you can use anything that you find in the PostgreSQL Documentation .
"Did you cover XYZ in lectures?" ... in some cases, I didn't ... one aim of this assignment is that you get some practice in exploring documentation in solving problems ... a skill that will be important in your future career.
Also, some questions on the Forum could have been answered by a close reading of the Specification ... another skill that will be important in both the exam and your future career.
On a technicality (the fact that I said somewhere that quizzes would test the preceding week's material) I have extended the deadline for Quiz 3 to Wednesday next week. At that point, the PLpgSQL material will be "previous week". Of course, you could have watched all of the PLpgSQL material under Slides and Videos, where it's been available since the start of term.
Our wonderful Kyu-Sang Kim and Carly Lim will be running a Help Session this Friday from 5pm to 7pm on Blackboard Collaborate .
If you have any questions about setting up PostgreSQL, setting up the ass1 database, or any of your Views/Functions please come along.
We are aiming to run 3 or 4 more Help Sessions next week.
Details TBA.
Online ( Zoom ) Help Session from 12-2 on Wed 8 March.
The Week 04 Preview video is available.
Week 03 tute solutions are available.
Quiz 3 will be open at 9am Monday.
Keep/start working on Assignment 1.
The
"Testing" page
for ass1 is now available.
On this page are instructions on how to run a set of automated tests on your Views and Functions.
The provided tests are based off of the
given
examples
, you should still do your own testing (especially for Q8 and Q9).
Thanks for Kyu-Sang for modifying Andrew Taylor's testing framework to work with SQL (and adding many other features).
Modified the ass1.sql template so it doesn't produce syntax errors when you load it.
Modified the example output for Q3 to count the number of beers brewed in each country, rather than counting the number of breweries.
Auto-testing is coming soon BUT it doesn't like the current ass1.sql template.
Humans can easily ignore the error messages produced from loading incomplete views, but auto-testing can't.
I've modified the ass1.sql template so that it can load without generating error messages.
It will generate a NOTICE about the beerdata type, but this is not an error.
The assignment spec (what you need to implement), database description and examples files are complete, so you can get started. Write your views and compare them to the sample outputs in the Examples page. Auto-testing will be available shortly. As noted below, let me know if anything is unclear or ambiguous or ...
The assignment is 99% done. In particular the ass1.dump and ass1.sql files are now available, and the description of the views/function you need to write is also available. I backed off having 10 views and 3 functions and you now have 7 views and 2 functions to write. Let me know of any typos, inconsistencies or lack of clarity as soon as possible.
Am incomplete draft of the assignment is now available. The crucial things it's missing: the template ass1.sql file, the database dump, the actual queries/functions you need to write.
What it does have, however, is an ER design for the database and an SQL schema based on this.
Lots happening this week ...
Reminder that Quiz 1 is due at midnight tonight.
If you have not yet completed
Quiz 1
on WebCMS you should do so ASAP.
We will be running an online help session this Friday (tomorrow) from 4pm until 6pm on Blackboard Collaborate.
If you are having any issues setting up PostgreSQL on the CSE db2 server please join the session and Kyu-Sang and myself will be happy to assist you.
We
may
be able to assist with setting up local PostgreSQL servers (ie on your own laptop or desktop) but make no guarantees of our technical abilities outside of the CSE db2 server.
You can access Blackboard Collaborate via the
course Moodle page
I'll have a consultation/help-session on Wed at 3-5 in K17 Room 410 to try to sort out setting up your PostgreSQL servers.
The Week 02 Preview video is now available (on YouTube and Echo360 ).
Tutes start this week.
It would be useful if you watched the relevant content videos (Slides and Videos) before the lecture.
Arrrgggghhh! My laptop recorded me nicely, but didn't record the screen. No problem, I thought, I'll get the screen video from Echo and merge it with the picture of me. After 5 attempts at exporting the result, I got a version that had audio for the first 30 secs, then nothing. I will use the Echo360 version and edit that into shape on Friday morning. Next time ...
Done. New video using dodgy camera footage from Echo360 is now on YouTube, linked from the Lecture Material page. Also, the files from the exercises are available via the Data link. You won't be able to read the *.graffle files, but they should all have corresponding *.png
The slides and video of the Tuesday lecture are now available under Lecture Material.
The "tracking" camera in CLB6 is a bit rubbish. I keep vanishing in the small window.
The Course Welcome video is now available. A masterpiece of cinematography.
There are 3 polls, so that I can have a better idea of what you do/don't know.
The detailed Course Overview video has arrived.
The two videos are available under Week 0 on Slides and Videos .
The detailed Course Outline is now available. Let me know of anything that's unclear, ambiguous or inconsistent.
Note that we have face-to-face lectures this term *not* online. For those who can't/don't-want-to attend the live lectures, recordings of them will be available on Echo360 and YouTube a few hours after the lecture ends (video processing takes time).
The WEB stream simply allows you to indicate that you don't plan to attend live lectures.
As for where lectures will be held, the timetabling systems seems to have gone a bit mad and keeps changing the location. I'm assuming that it will eventually stabilise to CLB6, but check the location before the first lecture if you plan to attend.
Despite what your timetable might tell you, COMP3311 tutes run in weeks 2-5 and 7-10
Yeee-haaaa. Looks like I'm "back in the saddle" for COMP3311.
Get ready to learn about beer, movies and the property market.
Oh ... and a bit about databases.