Has been for one and a half months already.
I’ve been busy with preparing the Data structures and algorithms (DSA) course. As mentioned earlier, I decided to remake all the programming tasks, which I did.
Partly they were edited from earlier year tasks. Like the Graphs task is the old 2021 Mazes task with a Pac-Man kind of a game. Each task has the actual algorithm and/or data structure to implement, and additionally a task to apply that in some specific problem solving situation. Another programming task applying a data structure is the implementation of linked list and then using it as a snake in a Snakeses game.
I also decided to remake all the recorded lecture videos. There was a couple of errors in the slides and some content needed revisions and better treatment. So I did that too.
All in all my attempt was to make the course easier to pass without cutting or compromising the learning goals. It has become kind of a bottleneck course in the curriculum when the compulsory prerequisite to a later course was cut away. Now students tend to take it later than before, so the number of students passing has been slightly lower than before. Hopefully this helps, well see.
Courses started two weeks ago and the first deadline of DSA is tomorrow at noon. Students are supposed to deliver the URL to the remote repository where their code will be.
I also remade the tool teachers and students can use to check the code does use the building blocks they should use. Like when implementing a recursive binary search, the tool checks that the function actually calls itself. Another example is a data structure’s toString() -method. There, it must use StringBuilder, not String — since it is thousands of times slower with large number of elements in the collection.
Some checks are made to make sure students do not use loops in various cases where they should cope without. So the tool has a rules file listing all these different kinds of rules to follow:
ArrayQueue.clear,mustnot,for
LinkedListImplementation.toString,must,StringBuilder
FastSort.sort,mustnot,Arrays.sort
BinSearch.searchRecursively,must,searchRecursively
BinSearch.searchRecursively,mustnot,while
BinSearch.searchRecursively,mustnot,forThe implementation then uses the com.github.javaparser library to parse the student code and check if the rules are followed. To avoid false warnings (and to some extent trying to fool the tool), the tool first clears comments and literal string values out of the code, and then analyses if the rules are fulfilled.
—
Otherwise, I’ve been in the usual Fall flu for the past ~25 days. I had to stop running due to that. A week a go I had to visit a doctor due to feeling really odd, like fainting. Nothing was found, except that the white cell levels in blood were a bit elevated. Strange times, strange illnesses.
First run after the break was the on Tuesday this week. I did 5+ km run, and yesterday 4+ km run, totaling a bit over ten km. Hopefully no more sickness this year.
—
Now I’ll have to rush to a teachers’ meeting. Returning back to this blog later, hopefully sooner.