Assignment 2 feedback

I hope everyone made the deadline.

So far, this subject seems to be a combination between COS211 and programming logic. Does anyone else agree with my perspective?

Reanie

I disagree.

But I do agree that the theory learnt in COS211 provides a sold basis for this course. But this course shows how (at least in chapter 3) to use data structures to solve Intelligent Agent problems. I never realised before that a FIFO queue storing parent-child nodes was what needs to be used to implement breadth first search. And I also never realised that using breadth first search could find a solution to goal solving by an agent. This is because the usages of data structures is not covered in 211 - rather it is overview of data structures and how to implement them.

Thus I rolled my own FIFO data structure to implement a breadth-first search to solve the Missionaries and Cannibals problem. And once I have completed the next COS340 assignment, I am going to take a break from the actual course assignments and write a program to solve the proper sudoku puzzle. (1-9) digits. Clearly depth first search will work the best and it does not have memory constraint problems. I actually wish I could be doing that rather than the COS340 assignment. Hmm. Maybe I could combine the two - I could present the user interface using OpenGL...

I will be writing it in pure C; and I will post it in this forum when done.

I think I am falling "in love" with AI; and although I am doing the software engineering stream when I get to honours I want to see how difficult it is to shift my focus to computational intelligence. I already have a BA which should stand in my stead!

So I disagree. I think this course treats the knowledge of 211 as a given; and shows how data structures can be used to implement "intelligence" - which is more specific than just any logical programming goal.

Very good points. I didn't define "programming logic", but your "intelligence" part definately captures some of my thoughts.
I also saw the difference between using lists and queues for the different searches - also agree that it gave a wider perspective of what we've covered in COS211.

COS211 is just a course on a basic building block in programming - the data structure.

COS212 was (which is a pity that it is no longer an "is" just a course on the STL - which are basic building blocks as well.

COS214 shows the uses of object oriented patterns - which again are just building blocks (but of a specific kind...)

This course takes those building blocks and teaches how to use them to create "intelligence".

The OS course should show how to use them to create OSes. But unfortunately there was minimal programming in that course.
COS314 showed (when it was on CORBA and I don't know what its like these days) how to use them in distributed programming - which again is a building block on top of building blocks. And so forth...

COS340 requires we use the building blocks to implement graphical theory.

Which makes sense if you read this... link...

NB - read this link it will allow you to understand and frame the entire UNISA computer science syllabus as a whole.

Poor Reanie missed year 1 due to previous studies in Pascal. So, year 2 was terrible and year 3 worse...
But, I've bought the year 1 text book and are "getting there" - very slowly...