Comments on Assignments 2 and 3

Assignment 2 was well done by everyone who submitted it.  Assignment 3 had some more issues, which seemed more like a matter of students rushing to get it done than anything else (i.e., sloppiness).  But it was fairly well done, too.

A few things to remember for future assignments:

• PLEASE do these changes to make sure your code compiles on all computers.  Marks will be taken off in the future if your code does not compile for these reasons.  Ask if you need help.
• Also, clear your warnings.  I know they aren't always made by you, but when I see a list of warnings, how will I know from a glance which are yours? It's such a good habit that I will be taking marks off in the future for having warnings.
• Make sure you read the assignment carefully, and put code in the functions it wants you to put it in.  I wasn't checking for that this time around, but will in the future, and will take marks off for not following the directions.

As always, email or comment here if you have any questions or concerns!

Office Hours Friday October 12

I will be on campus tomorrow afternoon, most likely in my lab for most of the time.  If you would like to visit me in person, please email ahead to make sure I will be there.  I should be on campus from 1pm - 3:30pm at least.

As usual, feel free to email for help instead!

Making Assignment 2 Compile

A few of you have had issues making Assignment 2 compile.  There are a couple of steps to making it work, as follow. (You may need to follow these instructions in addition to this.)

First, you will notice there are issues with some include header files.  The include that has a big long path can just be commented out - the needed header file is already included in the correct way after that line.  You can just remove the include for dxerr9.h as it is not needed.

Second, you'll see issues with the house class.  The files you need exist, but they are not included in the project properly.  If you look under "External Dependencies" in the Solution Explorer, you will find House.h.  You can right click that file and add it to the project.  You'll also need the source file, though.  To get that, right click on the "Source Files" folder in the Solution Explorer, then Add, Existing Item... You'll find House.cpp in the first folder that pops up.

At this point everything should be compiling.  Leave a comment or email me if you are still having issues.

Upcoming Office Hours

Hi all! I don't see office hours on the website yet, and things are a bit wonky the next couple of weeks anyway, so I wanted to let you know the current plans.

Oct 1-5: I am away at a conference all week, and won't have any office hours.  However, I can answer emails, hopefully within a day or two max.

Oct 5-9: This week I have to go to a conference in Montreal, but only on Wednesday.  I'll probably have office hours on Friday instead of Wednesday.  You can definitely email and expect a quick response.

Rest of the term: My official office hours are going to be Wednesdays 1:00-3:30 in my lab (5317 HP).  I recommend emailing to set up a time to meet me in case I can spread you out and give you individual attention.  I will always be available for help via email and can usually answer within a day (often much less).

Resources

Here are some resources that might be useful to you now or later in the term...

• Changes to make in project properties to ensure the project builds everywhere
• Open Asset Import Library (mentioned in class)
• Two-Kings DirectX Tutorials
• Toymaker DirectX Tutorials/Information
• 2D Transformations Applet
• Diffuse, Ambient and Specular Lighting Applet

Assignment 1 Marking Scheme and Comments

Assignment 1 has now been graded in WebcT.  Here are some comments and how I assigned grades and some suggestions for the future.

Here is the marking scheme I used:

• In Part 1:
• Worth 40 marks
• -10 if the mouse coordinates are wrong (e.g. don't start from 0,0 in the top left)
• In Part 2:
• Worth 40 marks
• -10 if the mouse coordinates are wrong (but won't take these marks off twice if also wrong in Part 1)
• -20 if both windows work with the right mouse button (instead of one working with the left)
• In Part 3:
• Worth 20 marks
• -20 if it does not appear to be implemented correctly, which includes any window closing even after saying 'no'
• -10 if you applied this part to Part 1 only, since it would be harder to do for Part 2 with the two windows
• If you applied this part to Part 2 only, but it worked right, that's ok since it's the harder part

A suggestion for future assignments: since a marking scheme is (unfortunately) not given  ahead of time, think about what sorts of thing I might look for in the completed assignment.  For simple tasks, I will want to see it working fully the way you'd expect it to as a user, even if it's not specified in the instructions.  For example, for part 3 of this assignment, I don't want my window to close if I say I don't want the application to close.

In general, I want to recommend that everyone clear their warnings, even if you didn't produce them.  It's a good software engineering practice to do this because a bunch of trivial warnings can obscure an important one that comes up later.  I'd like to see no warnings when I compile your project, and may take marks off for having warnings in the future.

If your project folder is big, you may not have deleted the build files before zipping it.  Please make sure you keep the size down by removing the build files before submitting.

Finally, please follow the advice from this post from last year to ensure I don't get build errors - I might be inclined to take marks off for having to fix it in the future. ;)

Welcome

Hello everyone! I decided to start this blog so that we would have a one-stop place for addressing common issues that come up in assignments and course material.  I will try to share useful resources that I've found and write out solutions to issues I think many students may face.  I will also likely post a list of common issues with completed assignments and refer to that list when I return your work.


I recommend checking back often or subscribing to the RSS.

Please feel free to comment here or email me directly with questions.