12/01/2006

Do we have to type A2, say... or can we type A and then later 2?  ...or do we care?

A student writes; I respond, he responds to my response, I then respond to his.

        >         Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 21:23:55 -0600 (CST)
        >
        >         Good evening Dr. Patt. I had a quick question regarding the Nim game
        >         programming assignment. below is what i get when i run my program so far:
        >              ROW A: ooo
        >              ROW B: ooooo
        >              ROW C: ooooooo
        >              Player 1, choose a row and number of rocks: A1
        >              ROW A: oo
        >              ROW B: ooooo
        >              ROW C: ooooooo
        >              Player 1, choose a row and number of rocks: A0
        >              Invalid move. Try again.
        >              Player 1, choose a row and number of rocks: D
        >              Invalid move. Try again.
        >              Player 1, choose a row and number of rocks: 3
        >              Invalid move. Try again.
        >
        >         Im aware of the fact that it does not switch players yet and i will fix
        >         that part soon, but my question is whether or not the fact that it
        >         realizes the move is invalid before the second input has been inputed is
        >         acceptable for your grading script. I mean it realizes the move is
        >         invalid, so i would think its ok, but i just wanted to check with you
        >         before i proceed with the remaining code. thank you for your time.

I answer:

        > Why not simply wait for the number and do each move as one atomic unit?  I
        > would think it would be more interesting for you.
        >
        > Yale Patt
        >
        >         <<name withheld to protect the student who is 
        >        "reading_the_assignment"-challenged>>

He comes back with:

        Wow thanks for responding so quickly.  i think i see what you mean now. 
        do you mean like get the input and store the letter in one register then 
        the number in another and work from there? because that seems reasonable. 

        <<name withheld to protect the student who is now seeing the light>>

I answer that thus:

Great!  I am delighted it seems reasonable.  In fact, my TAs made up a very thorough
example which is part of the assignment on the web page.  It is REAL important to read
the assignment thoroughly and have your program follow the IDENTICAL output format
that 
our example follows.  Otherwise, the grading program could give you a 0, and it is a 
nightmare to dig into it in order to correct it.

Good luck finishing the program on time and completing EE 306 successfully.

See you in class on Monday.

Yale Patt