DPST1091 Notices

Important updates - Assignment 2 marks, Change of consultation times, exam instructions

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Tuesday 11 August 2020, 12:41:57 PM.

1. Due to a maths exam this afternoon, CP 1511 consultation has been moved to 4:30 - 6:30.

2. Assignment 2 marks and all lab marks have been uploaded to webcms3. The final class mark will be available later this afternoon. If you have any queries regarding any of these marks, please come to the consultation at 4:30 pm.

3. Kindly note the following instructions for the exam tomorrow

• Please login into Moodle 30 minutes prior to the exam at 2:30 pm to retrieve the link to Zoom Exam session.
• J oin the zoom session at least 20 minutes before the exam commences . You will not be permitted to enter the exam once it has commenced. Make sure you join the Audio on the zoom session, so that we are able to communicate with you.Ensure your MIC and video camera are working.
• Have your student ID card ready all times during the exam.
• You should only have UNSW approved pens/pencils for working out. No calculators are permitted.
• Once, you are admitted into the zoom session, you will be assigned to a breakout room. Further instructions to login into the CSE Exam environment will be provided by your invigilator once you have joined the breakout room.
• Once, you are in the session, you must have your video turned on throughout the exam period.You will not be permitted to join the exam, if you do not have video turned on.
• Your invigilator will ask you for a 4-6 point camera pan of the testing environment to know your surroundings. This might include a slow camera pan of all walls, your desk, area under the desk etc.
• You might be asked to share your computer screen at any point during the exam to ensure that all settings are as per recommendations.
• No eating or drinking is permitted during the exam. You may have a clear water-bottle with you.
• You must turn your cell phone off and putting aside. You will also be asked to remove any smartwatches and tablets
• Your work area must be cleared of any clutter and material that is not permitted for you to use during the test.
• You should be in a well-lit place (indoors) so that the proctor can see you clearly and you should not be collaborating with any one.
• Please make sure, you have at least 2 blank white A4 papers for working out.
• During the exam, you are NOT allowed to take snapshots of the questions or download to your machine or collaborate with any one about the exam. Plagiarism checks will be done on all submitted solutions

Exam consultation reminder

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Wednesday 05 August 2020, 11:04:52 AM.

Hi everyone,

A reminder, we have a consultation running this morning (now) till 1:00 pm, for anyone needing help with exam preparation

Exam Consultation Times for CP 1511

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Monday 03 August 2020, 07:32:33 PM.

Kindly note the following exam consultation times for CP 1511 exam.

• 5 August: 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
• 11 August: 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm

Import week 12 updates

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Wednesday 29 July 2020, 12:56:04 PM.

Kindly note:

Assignment 2 has been extended to Week 12, Saturday, 11:00 pm.

Consultations for assignment 2 are as follows:

• Wed, 29 July, 5:30 - 6:30
• Fri, 31 July, 4:00 - 5:00

If anyone, has still not get their labs marked off, Friday lab B will be your last chance to get them marked off.

Week 12 Practice Final Exam

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Sunday 26 July 2020, 10:53:49 PM.

• Please note, this week, all the online groups will be doing a practice final exam for 1.5 hours (1/2 the duration of the final exam) in your respective lab A session to help you become familiar with the final exam format.
• This exam will be worth 2 marks.
• The exam will be held online through Zoom and the link to the zoom session will be made available to you through Moodle, 15 mins prior to start of the exam.
• Students must arrive 5 mins prior to the start of the practice exam. Students coming in once the exam has commenced, will NOT be allowed to join the exam.
• Please have your student ID card ready
• Kindly ensure that the video camera/mic on your laptop work prior to the exam.

Labs A and Lab combined today

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Tuesday 14 July 2020, 02:57:33 PM.

Hi everyone,

There will be a single combined session on Collaborate for both Online Group 1 (lab B 3 - 4) and Online Group 2 (Lab 3 - 5). Students in Online Group 1, please join the collaborate session for Lab A, Online Group 2.

Assignment 2

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Tuesday 07 July 2020, 05:07:25 PM.

Hi everyone,

Please note, assignment 2 has been released. Kindly note, all the relevant content required for this assignment, namely linked lists and ADTs will be covered by Monday next week, but it is good idea to read the specification and make yourself familiar with the assignment and also run the reference implementation.

Have fun!

Merging Tuesday Online 2 and 3 Tutorials

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Saturday 04 July 2020, 08:18:37 PM.

Dear students,

Students in Online group 3, your tutorial session will now run on Tuesday 12 - 1 pm, along with Online group 2. Kindly note, that the tutorial from 5 - 6 pm has been cancelled. Please let me know, if any one cannot make this tutorial due to a time-table clash.

Extension of assignment 1 to Monday, 29th of June, 10:00 am

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Sunday 28 June 2020, 10:16:27 AM.

Dear students,

1. Kindly note, the auto-test was back working on Friday afternoon. All tests should now work. Several students have emailed me about this. If you receive any auto-test errors now, it is likely due to an error in your application logic.
   
2. Due to the disruption in the working of auto-test Thu & Fri, I have extended the deadline to your assignment 1 to Monday, 29th of June, 10:00 am . Any submissions after this time, will incur the late penalty as advised in your submission guidelines.
   
3. Also, please note, you may not be able to log on to the CSE server during the following times as CSE database and server will be undergoing updates and maintenance.

23:45 Sunday 28 June 2020 - 02:00 am Monday 29 June 2020

Assignment 1 Autotest Issue

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Friday 26 June 2020, 10:55:16 AM.

Dear students,

There is currently an issue with the auto-test for both assignment 1 and lab exercises. We are currently looking into it and will update you all as soon as it has been resolved.

Assignment Help

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Wednesday 24 June 2020, 09:38:10 AM.

If anyone needs help with assignment 1 please join any of the sessions below:

• Wednesday Lab A 10 - 12 (this morning). Students from all online groups can join this lab for help. Tutors will be able to assist you.
• Wednesday 5:00 - 6:00 pm (this evening)
• Friday 4:00 - 5:00 pm

Also, note lab 07 is due only end of week 08 to give you more time for assignment 1, which is due this Sunday at 10:00 pm (end of week 7)

Please read the assessment and submission guidelines document in the assignment folder, for details on the grading and submission of the assignment

Extra Lecture - Week 05

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Thursday 11 June 2020, 08:44:57 PM.

Hi everyone,

A reminder that tomorrow (Friday), we will use the first hour 4-5 to go through assignment 1, followed by consultation from 5-6.

Assignment 1

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Monday 08 June 2020, 02:08:04 PM.

Assignment 1 has been released. You can find the specification under the assignment folder.

We will discuss about the assignment in the lecture this week

Lab 04 - Question 4 on Exploring memory

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Sunday 07 June 2020, 09:58:24 AM, last modified Sunday 07 June 2020, 10:02:42 AM.

Hi everyone,

I have received emails from students regarding what needs to be done, for Q4 (Exploring Memory) in lab 04. I have put together some some sample code, to help you with this task.

Q1 - Size of variables

Here, you are required to use the sizeof operator for the different data types such as char, unsigned char short etc. The sizeof operator returns the size in bytes allocated in memory for a particular data type, and the data type of this return value is unsigned long as shown below.

printf("The size of a char, in bytes, is %lu.\n", sizeof(c));
printf("The size of an unsigned char, in bytes, is %lu.\n", sizeof(uc));

Q2 - Variable limits

For the various data types, the constants that represent the upper and lower limits of the values, that can be represented by a datatype is found in limits.h, e.g., the upper limit of unsigned int is UINT_MAX. and the lower limit of int is INT_MIN. You also need to see what happens when you add 1 to the upper limit or subtract 1 from 0 for an unsigned data type e.g., for a signed value you will get the largest negative value that can fit in the number of bytes that the variable is stored in.

Q3 - Location of variables (Challenge exercise)

Use the & and %p conversion specifier to print out the address of the various variables used in the program and see if you can deduce how C places them in memory, e.g. what things are placed near each other, what things are placed far away? Are adjacent variables placed next to each other in memory or are there gaps? Please use gcc . Here's an example of what you see with gcc .

float f = 3.1;
double d = 3.14;
printf("The address of the float variable is %p\n",&f);
printf("The address of the double variable is %p\n",&d);

And I had a result such as:

In the above output, the difference between the float and double is 8 bytes. Add 8 to the address aff8 (the last 4 digits) -> you get b000.

Hopefully, this will guide you all to complete Q4.

Public Holiday Updates - Additional Lecture

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Friday 05 June 2020, 10:52:35 AM.

Hi everyone,

Monday, 8th of June is a public holiday, and there will be no lectures, tutorial or lab. Please note the following arrangements for alternative lecture/tut/lab times for week 05:

• An additional lecture will be presented today, during our scheduled consultation hour (Friday, 4-5 pm) to continue the topic of Arrays
• Students in Monday tutorial session (2 - 3) - please attend one of the other tutorial sessions (Tue 12 - 1) or (Tue 5-6)
• Students in Monday lab session (3-5) - please attend the Wednesday morning lab 10 - 12. If any one is unable to attend this lab session due to a time clash, kindly email me.

dcc Compiler is working now

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Saturday 30 May 2020, 03:44:56 PM.

Dear students,

The dcc compiler is working again, so you can resume running your auto-tests and using dcc again. Due to the delays caused by the earlier issue, a reminder that lab03 is extended till Monday 10:00 pm.

Issue with dcc compiler on CSE server

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Saturday 30 May 2020, 02:37:57 PM.

Dear students,

• There is currently an issue with the dcc compiler on the CSE server. This is possibly due to software upgrades, that are currently being done. As a result, you will not be able to run any auto-tests or do a give submission.
• Kindly, use the gcc compiler on the CSE server to do your own unit testing.
• Due to this issue, I have extended the due-date for all labs from Sunday night 10:00 pm to Monday night 10:00 pm. I will advise you, once this issue has been resolved.

Week 3 Lab A Session

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Tuesday 26 May 2020, 02:42:59 PM.

Dear students,

This week, we are trialling a new software "Hopper". For students, who want to be marked off for their labs, you will login on to this system, and join the queue for Marking. The link to this software will be made available to you through collaborate.

We are trailing this system, so that students do not need to move to a break-out group "Marking" in collaborate, but can continue to work on their labs. Once you are on the queue on Hopper, a tutor will pull you out of the "Lab Help" session to mark you, when it is your turn.

Please give us feedback, if you think this is working better. We are trialling different options, to make your online learning experience as smooth as possible.

Week 3 Updates

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Monday 25 May 2020, 06:42:35 PM.

Week 3 Lab A exercises:

It has come to our attention, that some students have had access to the solutions to this week's lab exercises and photos of these have been passed around. To be fair to all students:

• Questions 1 - 3 will now be considered as practice exercises (still to be completed by all students), and will not carry any marks.
• Questions 4 - 9 (and new challenge exercise) will count towards the grade for Lab 03 ( A new question has been added "Hollow Triangle")
• If solutions submitted are identical to the sample solutions that were circulated, no marks will be given for the lab. Tutors will also question each student, when their labs are to be marked, to check their understanding
• From this week onward, an automated style checker has been included in your lab exercises, which must also be run to make sure your code conforms to the style ( You need to pass at least 75% of this style checking)

Week 3 Practical Exam:

Please note the following in relation to the practical exam this week.

• The practical exam will be conducted in your regular Lab B session.
• The exam this week will be a practice exam only and will not carry any marks
• The exam will be 45 minutes in duration ( 5 mins reading time, 40 mins writing )
• Exam will be held through Zoom. Link to the zoom session will be made available through Moodle just before your Lab B. Students must remain in their allocated online groups (e.g., a student from Online Group 3 cannot take the Lab B for Online Group 1)
• You must have your webcam turned on throughout the duration of the exam. You will not be permitted to take the exam, if we cannot see you.
• Please be on time to the exam.

Welcome to CP 1511

Posted by Aarthi Natarajan Sunday 10 May 2020, 11:18:01 PM.

Dear students,

Welcome to CP 1511 - Introduction to Programming.

• Our first live streamed lecture will be tomorrow, 11th of May at 10:00 am. The live-streaming can be accessed through this link - Week 01 Monday Lecture (also available through Moodle course page)
• Kindly note, you have all been allocated to an online group which will determine your tutorial and lab session. As many of your enrolments are not finalised in Moodle, kindly refer to this Online Group List to find the group you have been allocated.
• Looking forward to meeting you all.