Anyone out there?

I see absolutely no posts from anyone; did everyone
finish their assignments on time? Any comments on
the assignment questions?

My comments:
I'm a little worried about the assignment coverage
of the material. The last assignment covered very
little material (just TM and 2PDA); can we assume
that the exam will cover mostly the same material
that the assignment questions did?

If not, then why are the assignments so short[1]?
Surely a few questions on alternative TM representation
or post machines would not have hurt much. I'm wondering
now whether to even revise those chapters for the
exam.

Comment from the lecturers would be nice

Notes
[1] I completed the assignment in about 2 hours; since
the other modules have assignments that span many days,
I considered this a short assignment.

dude do you wanna jinx the exam? unlike the other modules this one doesn't require long programs or essays to show you understand the material, the problems are enough to show that you either understand or you don't, without having to be unnecessarily long winded ..

iva Wrote:
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> dude do you wanna jinx the exam? unlike the other
> modules this one doesn't require long programs or
> essays to show you understand the material, the
> problems are enough to show that you either
> understand or you don't, without having to be
> unnecessarily long winded ..

Actually, I'm not too sure I see how this would jinx
the exam, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of
the doubt if you say it will.

My (probably incoherent) argument was that I've always
used the assignment questions as a guide for revising
for the exams. In this case, the questions covered very
little ground, and therefore makes one wonder "will the
stuff left out also be in the exams?"

Kind Regards

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Learn something new - updated weekly

ok, ja but they can't possibly cover eeeeeverything in the assignments , well mayeb they can but i'm not complaining

iva Wrote:
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> ok, ja but they can't possibly cover
> eeeeeverything in the assignments , well mayeb
> they can but i'm not complaining


Actually, that is why multiple choice exams are so popular:
it makes it possible for the questioner to romp through
900 pages of study material with good, equal coverage of
all the material (note that I think that MC is a bad way to
test a students knowledge!) in a mere 3 hour test.

Kind Regards

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Learn something new - updated weekly

ja and even if you don't know the answers you still have a 20% chance at getting a 5 choice question right

wait til you get to assignment 4 , the mother of all turing machines is in the last question

iva Wrote:
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> the mother of
> all turing machines is in the last question


Sounds like fun.

iva Wrote:
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> ja and even if you don't know the answers you
> still have a 20% chance at getting a 5 choice
> question right
>
> wait til you get to assignment 4 , the mother of
> all turing machines is in the last question


I look forward to writing a simulator for it

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Learn something new - updated weekly

Just to try and be geeky and get into this "fun" moment, lets compare our TM's for the last question in ass 4.

Hey Iva how many nodes did your mother TM have in the last question of Ass 4. Mine was 25, I think I could have made it less, but was too lazy.

cheers

Sadly, I've not yet had the tie to attempt
assignment 4; however I note with some concern
that my assignment 3 has not yet been marked.

(edit: damn typos ... "s/tie/time/g"

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omg! i only have 13 nodes ( including the start and halt)!!!! what the heck have i left out?? i didn't test that much hey so i dunno if its right even ..

PS when is ass4 due? i wouldn't mind posting my Tm for anyone who enjoys testing. i'm so lazy but wouldn't mind knowing if it would work or not

iva Wrote:
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> PS when is ass4 due? i wouldn't mind posting my Tm
> for anyone who enjoys testing.

I'd suggest not sharing assignment answers until
after the assignment is due.

I'm just, you know, saying ...

ja ja i know..

goose i've noticed they don't like to release marks til the next assigments are in, i think to keep the pressure on so you still make an effort

It is not to say that I'm right. I know it can be shorter. Yours might be much cleverer than mine.

What I did was to first compare the two outside strings. I then wiped the shortest one of the two out. Then I fixed up the the longer one of the two so that it is just a's again.

Then I compared the original middle string with the longer one of the previous, check. Then wipping out the shorter one of the two, and fixing up the winner, so that is all a's again.

stop

You see it is a very long way of doing it.

i think i wiped mine letter for letter, once ones done i move on to the next biggest word ,something like that.

I don't mind sharing my TM after the due date...

Something I wanted to know while doing this Mother of a TM in Ass4 was, do the temp characters matter, while we are running the word on the TM? I don't think so as long as the answer is correct, right ?!? (the #'s, the *'s, and the whatevers)

Also do the amount of nodes count? (again I don't think they count)

I don't think we will get such a "huge" TM in the exam?!? (hope not)

Also do we assume LEN >= 1 for the input to the TM.
(I assumed it)
And then you can test with the 9 general tests.

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