CSCI 162 announcements: Spring 2019

Apr. 14, 2019: lab6 deadline glitch
Sorry folks, botched the lab6 submission deadlines this weekend. They've been reset to 6pm monday

Apr. 10, 2019: office hours during exams
I'll have office hours
  - Tuesday Apr 16th 11-1
  - Wednesday Apr 17th 12:30-2:30
The final exam is Tuesday the 23rd, 9-noon in the gym
(note the university is closed the 19th-22nd over easter)

Apr. 8, 2019: lab6 deadline reminder, lab 5 solutions
Just a reminder that lab 6 is due this Friday (the 12th) at 5pm.
A sample solution for lab 5 has been added to the solutions page.

Apr. 4, 2019: extra lab6 notes
I've expanded the lab 6 notes, with additional explanation/examples for regular expressions and algorithm complexity.

Mar. 31, 2019: Grammars for C and C code for bit manipulation
I've posted some short C programs showing how to manipulate bit patterns in C

I've also posted links for lex/yacc grammars for C. Note that the style is slightly different than the prolog DCG syntax we looked at, in that the : is used instead of --> and the | is used instead of ;
yacc-based grammar for C (context-free-grammars + some added-on code)
lex-based grammar for tokenizing C (regular-expressions + some added-on code)

Mar. 27, 2019: Lab 4 sample solutions posted
The lab solutions page has been updated to include a sample solution for the lisp lab (4)

Mar. 26, 2019: Lisp/prolog practice
I've updated the exams page to include some suggested programming practice for lisp and prolog.

Mar. 21, 2019: Putty update
Hi folks, just passing this along from Merlin:
If you or any of your students use PuTTY on Windows, please update to the latest
version (0.71) as soon as conveniently possible. 
The official web site: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
A number of bugs and exploits have been found and fixed via the EU bug bounty
program.  If you are interested in some details:
https://thehackernews.com/2019/03/putty-software-hacking.html

Mar. 16, 2019: Lab 5 (prolog) repository updates
Just a note in case anyone has done an early grab of the lab 5 repository: I've added a test script (tester.pl) to the repository and updated the files to correct a contradiction in the expected function behaviour. Copies of the updated files are also available here: lab 5 files

Mar. 15, 2019: Practice discussion questions
I've also posted a batch of practice discussion questions (essay-style questions) that would be good practice for the final exam.

Mar. 14, 2019: Practice final (happy Pi day!)
I've posted two practice final exams: version 1, version 2.

Note that many of the questions involve crossover between a couple of topics, for example in practice final 1:
Q1 is marie + prolog + fetch-decode-execute
Q2 is digital logic + regular expressions
Q3 is two's complement + finite state machines
Q4 is marie + lisp.
Q5 is lisp and complexity theory.
Q6 is just prolog.

We'll be starting the prolog material in lectures Mar. 19th as well as in lab 5, and will be starting the theory material (regular expressions, finite state machines, complexity) in lectures on April 2nd as well as in lab 6.

Mar. 12, 2019: Midterm and lab 3 solutions
I've posted midterm sample solutions and a lab 3 sample solution,
I'll give the midterms and labs back today ... remind me :-)

Feb. 25, 2019: Final exam time/location announced
Our final exam has been set for Tuesday April 23rd, from 9am to noon, in the gym.

Feb. 22, 2019: Digital circuit practice
I've added a few more practice questions with digital circuits to use prepping for the midterm.

Feb. 19, 2019: Midterm reminder and office hours during study week
Just a reminder that the midterm will be Tuesday March 5th, and will cover everything covered up to/including this Friday's lecture and the labs up to and including lab 3 (Marie).
During the study week my office hours will be Tuesday and Friday, 11am-1pm.

Feb. 13, 2019: The post-snow plan...
The plan after all the snow cancellations is:

Feb. 11, 2019: Midterms, schedules, snow, etc
Well, campus is now officially closed Tuesday as well (good thing - we've got a foot of snow in our driveway and it's still coming down hard).

Tuesday I'll post an official update, but I think what's going to happen is as follows:

Jan. 30, 2018: lab submissions and logisim examples
Don't forget, after you make your final changes to your labs, to submit them you need to go to your lab directory and run the following commands:
    git add .
    git commit -m "...whatever message..."
    git push
I've also posted a few logisim circuits if you want to continue experimenting with it (download and open them in logisim)

Jan. 25, 2018: practice midterms
A second (possibly tougher) practice midterm has been posted.

Jan. 24, 2018: Midterm prep, and final word on waitlists
The midterm will be held in class on Tuesday Feb. 19th. A practice midterm has been posted, along with a copy of the reference sheet you'll be given with the exam.

With respect to the waitlists, we are still (over)full, and unfortunately are now past the point where we can add any students to the course even if someone else now drops the course. If you didn't get in, I strongly recommend contacting the department advisor (Huizhu.Liu@viu.ca) to plan your courses for next year.

Jan. 14, 2018: VIU Computer Planned Outage: Jan 19/20
VIU computer systems (including all labs, servers, and email) will be unavailable this coming weekend (Jan. 19/20). This means you will not be able to connect to our servers to work on labs this weekend, and any email sent to VIU addresses over the weekend might be lost.

Jan. 5, 2018: Waitlists and labs
Unfortunately, it looks like we'll still have a pretty substantial waitlist for both sections after the pre-req checks are completed. I've got a limited ability to expand the section sizes (we can fit up to 18 in each lab section, rather than 16) and will do so after the waitlist period ends (Jan. 15).
Note that labs will begin in the second week, i.e. Jan. 16th.

Jan. 4, 2018: Preliminary announcement
This page will be used throughout the semester as the focal point for announcements about changes to assignments, labs, exams, deadlines, class cancellations, etc.

I recommend students check this page a couple of times a week throughout the semester.