CS 70

Getting Help with Homework 3

Ask your Homework 3 questions here. Use the box at the bottom of this page. Your question is posted to this page for the class to see (under an animal name rather than your own). If you would rather only the course staff saw it, there is a box to tick for that.

Course staff read this page. So do your classmates, and a classmate answering first is a good outcome rather than a failure of the system.

  • Goat speaking

    Meh. Why not just email somebody?

  • LHS Cow speaking

    Because one answer here reaches everyone with the same problem, and on this assignment a lot of people hit the same Makefile and terminal snags within an hour of each other.

  • Duck speaking

    So if my Makefile won't build, somebody else is probably stuck on the same thing?

  • LHS Cow speaking

    Almost certainly. That is exactly the kind of question that is worth asking in public.

Before you ask

  • Compile on the CS 70 server (cs70.cs.hmc.edu), and read the first error, not the last one—a later error is often just fallout from an earlier one.
  • If it's a Makefile problem, remember that command lines must start with a real tab, not spaces, and check the Working with Makefiles page.
  • If your question is about a lesson rather than the assignment, ask on that lesson's Key Points page instead, where it sits next to the material.

Asking a question we can actually answer

  • Push your code first. Commit, push, and say so—then whoever picks up your question can look at the real thing rather than at a description of it.
  • The exact command you ran—pasted, not summarised.
  • The exact output or error, in full, in a ``` ... ``` code block. Compiler, linker, and make errors are long and the useful line is often not the last one, so paste all of it.
  • What you expected instead, and what you have already tried.

Things that go wrong on Homework 3 specifically

  • Makefile “missing separator” or nothing rebuilds. Command lines must begin with a literal tab. Say what make printed.
  • Linker errors (undefined reference). Usually a .cpp not being compiled/linked, or a rule missing a dependency. Say which rules you have.
  • The animation looks garbled or cut off. This is almost always terminal size—an ASCIImation is 80×40, so your terminal must be at least that big. Say how big your terminal is.
  • It works for your partner but not for you. Usually one of you hasn't pulled the other's latest commits. Pull first, then say what still differs.
  • ncurses/terminal weirdness after a crash. If your terminal is left in a strange state, close it and open a fresh one.

When a conversation would be faster

  • Ask in lab, especially for anything where someone looking at your screen beats a paragraph of description.
  • Come to grutoring or office hours for anything conceptual, or for the questions that are hard to phrase.
  • For anything personal, or about the course rather than the code, contact a professor directly.

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