Old Messages of the Day

Thursday, May 10, 2001

• We have fixed a bug in Geometry which allowed it to lock up if certain arguments were used. See the changelog for details.

Tuesday, May 8, 2001

• The gizmoball handout has two additions. The Geometry class can now be tuned for increased performace, and a MagicKeyListener has been provided to aid with keypress semantics. Read changelog v1.55 for details.

Friday, May 4, 2001

• We neglected to include a description of how to modify the KeyConnect command to work with multiple triggers even though our sample file used such commands. We have added a description of how you should handle the KeyConnect commands.

Thursday, May 3, 2001

• There is an incompatibility between Swing and the fvwm2/fvwm95 window manager. If you are using fvwm2/fvwm95, consider using a different window manager while developing Gizmoball. (If you don't know what fvwm is, you're probably using the default mwm window manager, and you don't have to worry about this.) (See our Q & A on this issue for more details.)

Tuesday, May 1, 2001

• The gizmoball amendment has been released.
• The gizmoball handout has been updated to fix two typos concerning the units on the gravity value (see v1.51 in the changelog).

Sunday, April 29, 2001

• The gizmoball handout has been updated with further information about jar files (see v1.50 in the changelog).

Monnday, April 23, 2001

• The gizmoball handout has been slightly updated (see v1.47 in the changelog).
• Grade sheets (through PS6) are available in the course secretary's office.
• There will be a guest lecture on Wednesday, April 25, at 10:00am in 34-101.

Sunday, April 22, 2001

• We have mounted the AFS backup volumes for each group. You may now access your backup via the path /mit/6.170/groups/seMMN/OldFiles.

Saturday, April 21, 2001

• We have slightly improved the physics library for ball-to-ball collisions. See the change log 1.44 for details.

Friday, April 20, 2001

• A minor clarification has been made to the gizmoball handout. See the change log 1.41 for details.

Friday, April 13, 2001

• You may pick up your graded quiz and your cumulative gradesheet from the course secretary in NE43-529, during business hours.
• Quiz 2 solutions have been posted.
• The preliminary design deadline has been extended to noon on Thursday, April 19.

Monday April 9, 2001

• To help you prepare for the test, the TA office hours will be shifted more to Monday and Tuesday. Check the schedule frequently, as we will be making updates througout the day as more TAs decide their revised hours.

Thursday, April 5, 2001

• The final project handout has been posted.

• Quiz 2 will be held Wednesday, April 11, 2001.
  The Quiz will be held during class time, and will be closed book.
  Students with usernames starting with a-j will take the quiz in 54-100.
  Students with usernames starting with k-z will take the quiz in 34-101.

• The Quiz Review will be at 7:30pm on Sunday, April 8, in room 34-101. Bring your own questions.
• Previous quizzes (which had already been made available in the Supplemental Info section) are still available for your review.

• The lecture notes for this week have been posted.

Wednesday, April 4, 2001

• If you're still making changes to your implementation for problem sets 2, 3, or 4, returnin is still available. Any returnin attempts you make now will not affect your returnin grade for the problem set in question.

Tuesday, April 3, 2001

• We have added many notes to the Q & A section of ps6 in recent days. Please take a moment to read them over if you have not done so already.

Saturday, March 31, 2001

• Lab 8 has been released early this week. It is about creating GUIs using Java's swing library. You might find it useful when creating you MapQuick GUI.

Wednesday, March 28, 2001

• A summary of mid-term course evaluations is available.

Tuesday, March 27, 2001

• The Directions interface specification and public test cases for ps6 have been updated. Read v1.31 in the ps6 changelog for details.

• Jeremy will hold office hours today from 11a-4p in NE43-413

• Returnin for problem sets 2 and 3 is running. You may use returnin to test your problem set 2 or 3 implementation if you are still changing it. The autograder mail you receive will include a grade, but your actual problem set 2 or 3 returnin grade will still be based on whether or not you passed returnin by the deadline.

Thursday, March 22, 2001

• Returnin for problem set 2 has been re-enabled. While the autograder mail you receive will include a grade, your actual problem set 2 returnin grade will still be based on whether or not you passed returnin as of the extended deadline. You may use returnin to test your problem set 2 implementation if you are still changing it.

Monday, March 19, 2001

• Problem Set 6 has been posted.

Saturday, March 17, 2001

• All Lecture Slides to date have now been posted.

Thursday, March 15, 2001

• There will be no lab sessions on Friday this week.

Wednesday, March 14, 2001

• Returnin for problem sets 2 and 3 is now available.

Tuesday, March 13, 2001

• Problem Set 5 has been posted.

Saturday, March 10, 2001

• We have added a sentence to the CompositeRoutePath section of ps4 to make it clear that you should include a rep invariant, an abstraction function, and a checkRep method.

Friday, March 9, 2001

• Lab 5 is now available.
• The mean score for quiz 1 is 48.4 (out of 82), and the standard deviation is 14.9.
• 5pm: Returnin for problem set 1 is now available. See the Problem Set Submission handout for details.
• Returnin for problem set 1 is now due on Thursday, March 15 at midnight.
• 7pm: Please see the updated Problem Set Submission instructions about how submission for classes from ps2 and ps3 work when turning in Problem Set 4.

Tuesday, March 6, 2001

• Quiz 1 will be held tomorrow, Wednesday, March 7, 2001.
  Students with usernames starting with a-j will take the quiz in 54-100.
  Students with usernames starting with k-z will take the quiz in 34-101.

Monday, March 5, 2001

• We have added an online comments form for students to submit feedback.
• Special quiz-week office hours have been posted.

Sunday, March 4, 2001

• Problem set 4 has had two updates: we have provided the source code used by validate6170 ps4, and we have amended the specification for the required StreetNumberSet constructor. See revisions 1.54 and 1.55 in the ps4 changelog for details.
• Due to poor attendance, we are cancelling the Thursday evening lab. We will, however, continue to have 3 lab sessions on Fridays at 10, 11, and 2 and strongly encourage you to attend.

Friday, March 2 2001

• The Quiz next week will be held during class time, and will be closed book.
• The Quiz Review will be at 7:30pm on Sunday, March 4, in room 34-101. Bring your own questions.
• Several previous quizzes have been made available for review in the Supplemental Info section.
• The example queries for problem set 4 are now available.
• We have strengthened the requires clause of the constructor of StreetNumberSet in order to simplify its implementation.

Thursday, March 1, 2001

• Problem Set 4 is now available.
• Lab 4 is now available.

Monday, February 26, 2001

• A change log has been added to the problem set 3 handout. You should use it to find out about changes to the handout, especially if you have printed it.

Thursday, February 22, 2001

• Problem Set 3 is now available.

Tuesday, February 20, 2001

• A Java Q & A Section has been added, answering some common questions about the language. It'll be updated over time. Please also read the Specifications Guide for information on specification fields and more.

Sunday, Feburary 18, 2001

• The ps2 handout has been updated with clarifications and new tests. Please read the errata section for details.

Wednesday, Feburary 14, 2001

• Due to anticipated demand of the 6.001 lab on Thursday evening, the regularly scheduled Thursday evening lab will be moved this week to Friday. This means that labs this week will occur on Friday at 10, 11, 2, and 3.

Tuesday, Feburary 13, 2001

• The supplied code for RatPoly.parse(String) contained an error. Please read the ps1 errata section for more details.

Monday, Feburary 12, 2001

• The Problem Set 1 Q & A has been revised and updated, and it has been consolidated into the Problem Set 1 handout. A Provided classes section has also been added to the handout, which should clear up some questions about RatTerm.
• The Problem Set Q & A section is now on-line. This page will list clarifications and answers to common questions about problem sets and will be updated often.
• The calendar has been updated to include reading assignments. Also, the optional quiz reviews have been moved from Monday to Sunday due to MIT academic calendar regulations.

Saturday, Feburary 10, 2001

• A handout on Problem Set Submissions has been released, and will be updated over the upcoming week.
• Note that there was a typo for the due date on the Problem Set 1 handout. The actual due date is Thursday, February 15.

Friday, Feburary 9, 2001

• 6.170 registration is closed, as the course is full. Students who have not yet heard that they are in the class, will need to take it next semester. We regret that not everyone will be able to attend this semester and look forward to seeing, next fall, those who were lotteried out this spring.
• The first lab session was a big success, and we encourage you to come to the 10am, 11am, or 2pm session today. Before you come, however, please be sure to read and follow the Java initial setup directions.
• There's a new All Handouts section which lists every handout in reverse chronological order. From now on, we will no longer announce regular handouts in MOTDs. Please just use the All Handouts section as a "What's New" list.
• Note also that we are providing a quick link to the current problem set in the Shortcuts section to your left.

Thursday, February 8, 2001

• Recitations start today! :)
• Lots of updates to the website. The Course Info section has been split up, Lecture Notes are up, and answers to commonly asked questions from those index cards we passed out during lecture are up. Recitation and Lab notes will appear after they happen.

Wednesday, February 7, 2001

• We expect you to be able to do Problem Set 0 without help and in a very short period of time, but if you're really lost, Gary will staff special LA hours from 6-8pm tonight in the W20-575 cluster. Please feel free to go look for him or zephyr the instance.
• Section Assignments are up. First recitation is tomorrow, Thursday, February 8, at 10am, in your assigned room. Have fun meeting your TA!

Tuesday, February 6, 2001

• Welcome to 6.170!
• Students must fill out the signup form by 11:59pm tonight.
• Read all of the first-day Administrative and Supplemental info handouts. especially the general information and calendar.
• Problem Set 0 has been given out, and is due this Thursday.