[vox-tech] Re: help with script

[Peter Jay Salzman]

begin Ken Bloom <kabloom@ucdavis.edu> 
> > ---ORIGINAL MESSAGE---
> > Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 00:16:19 -0700
> > To: vox-tech@lists.lugod.org
> > From: Peter Jay Salzman <p@dirac.org>
> > Subject: [vox-tech] help with script
> > Reply-To: vox-tech@lists.lugod.org
> > 
> > hi lugod,
> > 
> > i'm allowing my students to turn in their assignments electronically
> > this quarter.  they're writing C or fortran programs.  i'm requiring
> > them to turn in:
> > 
> > 1. the program
> > 2. a file showing the compile process and the program output.
> > 
> > for #2, i'm having them use "script".
> > 
> > however, script shows annoying ^M's plus any kind of backspacing and
> > term codes:
> > 
> >    Script started on Wed Oct  2 17:00:24 2002
> >    ^[]0;dhevan@jensen:~^G[dhevan@jensen dhevan]$ cc program1.c^M
> >    ^[]0;dhevan@jensen:~^G[dhevan@jensen dhevan]$ exit^M
>      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>      Judging from this sequence, it looks like the work was done in an
>      xterm.
 
yep.

> > any suggestions?   what does the CS department do for electronically
> > submitted document?
> 
> In all of my ECS classes thus far (ECS40 and ECS110, both with Sean
> Davis), the students submitted their program source code (and makefile)
> electronically using `handin' (which enough other people have described
> here that I don't need to), and the the professors would build our
> programs themselves from our sources and run them using their own custom
> shell scripts.
> 
> Students are expected to match their professors' program's output to the
> point where `diff' would return no differences. The professors' shell
> scripts grep through our output, looking for the essential pieces of the
> correct output (however we are not told in advance what patterns they
> are looking for, what input they will throw at our programs, nor what
> other data they look for to find the output).
> 
> In this way, professors save time, and they know that the output is from
> our binaries (and not from the sample binaries that they gave us, nor the
> result of our own painstaking typing using $EDITOR).

eeks, that would be un-doable for this class.  they're basically solving
physics problems.  since research is all about doing it "your way", we
don't want to dictate how the solve problems; we just want to see
thought and creativity.

for example, finding an eigenvalue for a particular problem may boil
down to finding a root of some transcendental equation.  i want to give
them the opportunity to use bisection, newton's method, or whatever
other scheme they dream up.  and leave it up to them to figure out "how
many digits of precision is enough".

but i can see how the CS dept's method would be perfect for someone
learning a language, where you demand certain output given a certain
input.

the assumption is that these kids already know C, which is unfortunately
not true.  most of the hello world programs i've seen look more or less
like:

#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
printf("hello world\n");
}

i think the professor (who uses fortran) might have put this on the
blackboard.  :(

pete