Student Comments 95/96

Course Content

"Boring! Sorry about that but if I knew that this course was about lex and yacc - I wouldn't have chosen to do it. I took this because of C and Unix which you said we will learn about. How about removing lex and yacc and replacing that with C++ which I think would be more interesting. Too much on Pascal, FORTRAN and COBOL - which are no longer important. How about C++ instead?" Sorry, this is meant to be a comparative language + implementation course, not a course about learning a language - I will try to be clearer next time.

"Could be very interesting." [but presumably wasn't - interest = 6]. "Not very varied, but interesting." [7] "Some interesting material." [7] "Not exciting." [3] "I thought it was quite an interesting course, although it started off a bit slowly. I prefered the more high-level language design. Perhaps this could have been started earlier in the course." "Some parts are covered too briefly e.g. Yacc." "What's it all about? Do we really need this?" "Fine. Varied, didn't over-concentrate on anything."

Course Presentation

"Good although you speak too fast." "O.K. some things weren't explained clearly enough." "Very good." "Good - useful examples given." "Diagrams on the board were unclear." "Top marks to the lecturer for managing to make even the duller topics interesting." "Well presented material." "Good." "Good lectures." "Quite a difficult set of topics to cover but ideas made very clearly. Extra help and references [two ticks]". "Very well lectured." "Fairly well presented." "Pete Jinks is a very good lecturer - shame about the braces." "Confusing to pronounce 'pass' as 'parse' and 'parse' as 'parze'!"

Handouts

"Things pop out of nowhere - how about more precise, better layout?" "More space for own notes" "More space to add own notes. Generally make them clearer and easier to read - titles, better (not bigger) fonts." "Not very well set out?! Why are the handouts different from the slides?" "Clever use of slightly more verbose handouts compared to OHP slides." "Superb. Weren't just a copy of the slides." "Perhaps a little bit too concentrated, requiring a lot of revision. But complete in information." "Difficult to read." "More structure please." "It is a shame that there isn't one single text to help reinforce the handouts and lecture notes." "Not well laid out. Difficult to revise from (even with additional notes)." "Difficult to read in such small print." "Were of a good standard. However, could have better integrated with what the actual projector slides were. Possibly too much extra board scribble." "There was anough information to make the sheets good references but there was little enough to require notes. No problems there then." "Good." "Very Good. Previous handouts available in the lecture was useful if you missed a lecture." "Should be clearer and more detailed. Some things seem to jump out of nowhere." "Good." "Good - better than most other modules." "Very helpful." "Good." "Good." "Good handouts." "Very good as they are. Basing the course on a book would lead to a) people buying the book, but not coming to the lectures, or b) people not buying the book, scribbling frantically during lectures, not understanding material."

In the next lecture, I talked about the restrictions on handouts etc. - the dept. can barely afford the copying costs at the moment. Most people seemed to thing that the current compromise was the best. One person suggested dropping the exercises at the end of each handout to give room for a little more detail.

Laboratory

"Little help available if any" "More labs which take >1 session to do then there wouldn't be a deadline each week. Web page helped sometimes." "Too complicated. Lex and Yacc weren't explained clearly enough so lab was hard. Ex1 was duff. Lab scripts were too vague - it's hard enough doing the labs without having to decode what you have to do. Web page helped (if server felt like it) but no point in just putting a copy of lab script there." "Strange!" "OK. 5,6,7 should stay as they are because it ensures the work can be done. Otherwise OK." "Seemed to make assumptions about previous knowledge of C-shell in lab 1 and extensive C." "Hard. Not enough hints in lectures. Web page too slow in 2nd year lab." "Very hard in some cases, but not impossible." "The descriptions of the exercises were brief and tricky to understand what was being asked." "About the right length (timewise), but spend most time working out what you are supposed to do, rather than doing it." "Instruction bit vague. Demonstrators of differing standards. First couple of labs were interesting, then I went on auto-pilot, just changing the bits of the code you needed to without really knowing why." "Far too hard - and too often - labs should have been once a fortnight." "The lab scripts were too vague - especially for the dictionary, it was difficult to know what was expected. Some demonstrators gave easy 10/10, others a picky 8/10 for the 'same' code." "I felt that there were perhaps too many labs. Most of them were useful though. Perhaps the first and last labs could be omitted. The catchup weeks were given with perfect timing however. I thought exercises 5, 6 and 7 were particularly good." "Fiddly, difficult but when you realise what you have to do, there was nothing to it!" "It was difficult to keep up near the end of the course." "Not defined at all. Preparation impossible." "Lab 1 and lab 6 [5?] were difficult to get to grips with but some labs were too easy and could be finished in 10 minutes." "Difficult to get into lex and yacc but general understanding increased nice and gradually. Weekly labs OK - but thank god for 'weeks off'." "Not very helpful. Still not sure what any of them were about! Demonstrators seemed confused at times also!" "People seemed to have a problem understanding exactly what was needed in the labs. Perhaps the labs instructions could be made a bit more understandable." "First lab a little baffling and last lab (C bit) very very hard. Good that there were 'catch-up' sessions." "Hard. Could be a bit better explained. People really need to know why and what they are doing." "Too many. 1 every fortnight would have been better. Also, too many deadlines. A couple of longer exercises would have been better." "Leave it as it is for next year. The small chunks make it easier to digest. Main problem is understanding the lab script, especially Ex. 1." "Lab manual could be clearer, especially ex 1, 2. Had to use lex too soon after it was introduced in lectures, no time to prepare."

I accept the comments about exercise 1. I have thrown it away, and have a completely new exercise, which also serves as an easier introduction to lex. I have rewritten most of the lab exercises to try to be more explicit about what is required - your more detailed emails are a big help here.

Examples Classes

"None, yeah!" "None - good, they are pointless (and no-one goes). "Some tutorials (and therefore specific help from tutors) would/may have helped!" "Examples classes may have been useful!"

In the next lecture, most people confessed that they don't attend examples classes and they were a waste of time. Only one or two students had looked at the exercises at the end of each handout.

Other Comments

"Web page a good idea." "The web pages were a good extra. Something that other courses don't do, and should." "A lot of useful information was provided on the web page and extra questions - this is welcome as most modules don't provide anything at all." People seemed to like the web pages, but in the main had only used the part that gave help with the lab exercises.

"Maybe there should be a slight overlap/refreshing of peoples minds at the beginning of lectures, as a lot of material is covered in each individual lecture." "Yacc and lex are very complex and unclear - for most of the labs I was 'guessing' what to change. Some more help would be useful." "Could have been a lot easier to learn/do." "I wish I hadn't chosen this course." [interest = 3] "Assumptions that everybody has done CS2042 were made occasionally. Not everybody does CS2042." "P.J. is a good, enthusiastic teacher." "Cheers Pete!" "Pete is always able (and happy?) to spend time helping with queries, lab problems etc. (unlike some lecturers!)" "Very interesting course [10]. Looking forward to next year's compiler course!" "Fine lecturing abilities Pete." "Best course I've had in this dept."