Tues, 23 Sept 2014, 01:38
My students, As many of you have undoubtedly realized, the grading script malfunctioned in grading lab 2, and so a lot of you got 100 when the reality is that you earned quite a bit less than that. The reason for the malfunction is not relevant. It was way beyond our control. A grading script that has been working fine for many semesters all of a sudden malfunctioned. What is very relevant is the awareness that because of the pace of the course, I can not hit master reset on the lab 2 assignment. If I did, we would be far too crunched at the end of the semester and that is not the learning environment I want. So, I have decided to simply give everyone 100 on lab 2, and move on. The reality is that my original set of labs for the course did not include lab 2. I added it some time ago in order to provide you with insight into the follow-on lab, which is now lab 3. I believe that if you have not mastered lab 2, you are going to have a lot more trouble with lab 3, but if you get lab 2 to work correctly first, lab 3 will be a lot easier. So, I encourage you to make sure lab 2 is working correctly before you move on to lab 3. We will only require you to complete lab 3. How you manage your time with lab 2 and lab 3 is up to you. What you do about lab 2 is also up to you. Because I encourage you to not drop lab 2 until you have successfully mastered it, I include the following: To get your lab 2 to work properly with the grader you must go to the lab page and re-download the new version of the starter code titled “lc3bsim2.c”. You can then copy all the modifications you made to your original starter code over to your new starter code. We have enabled late submission for lab 2 and directions on how to do this are on the website. Lab 3 is now posted on the website, so you can work on it when you are ready. Good luck with the rest of this course. I am sorry about the glitch in grading lab 2, but I believe my way to handle it will keep us moving where we need to be moving. See you in class on Wednesday. Yale Patt