Thursday, November 19, 2009 7:15 PM,

I have received a couple of messages already about the Nim program that wants 
further clarification of the input expected of the two players.

I thought the specification was pretty clear.  Nonetheless:



	 Hello Professor Patt,
 	
	 In the Nim program, can I assume that the player inputs a capital 
	 letter followed by a number?



Yes.



	 Are there inputs like 1A, 1AA, DD, #2?
 


I am curious.  What in the statement of the problem suggests that these inputs 
would be legitimate?



	 Thanks for your time.
	 
	 <name withheld to protect the student who came up with some strange 
	 inputs>>



We could have allowed a2, b4, etc. to be valid inputs, but decided to keep it 
simpler and require the "players" to input a capital letter, followed by a 
digit.  I think I will augment the example to show the program not accepting 
"a1" as a legitimate input to make that even clearer.

Good luck finishing the program, hopefully in time to play it with your 
younger brother on Thanksgiving!

Yale Patt