CS 70

Getting Help with Homework 1

Ask your Homework 1 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—and 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 great many people hit the same problem within about an hour of each other.

  • Duck speaking

    So if I'm stuck on installing something, somebody else probably is too?

  • LHS Cow speaking

    Almost certainly, and on the same operating system. That is exactly the kind of question that is worth asking in public.

Homework 1 is the one that runs on your own machine, not on the CS 70 server. That makes it the assignment where the answer depends most on which machine you have—so say which operating system you are on, and which version, in every question you ask here. Without it, any answer is a guess.

Before you ask

  • Re-read the step you are on, and check you did the one before it. Most installation problems are a missed step rather than a broken tool.
  • Check the installation page for your platform — macOS, Windows or Linux. They differ on purpose.
  • 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

  • Which operating system, and which version. Every time. This is the one that saves the most back-and-forth on this assignment.
  • The exact command you ran—pasted, not summarised.
  • The exact output or error, in full, in a ``` code block. Installation 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.

If your question is about code, push it 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.

Things that go wrong on Homework 1 specifically

  • A command "isn't found" right after installing it. Usually the shell is still using its old idea of where programs live. Close the terminal, open a new one, and try again before assuming the install failed.
  • The compiler works but the debugger doesn't, or vice versa. Say which is which—they install separately and fail separately.
  • Your partner's machine works and yours doesn't. That is normal and it is not a sign you did something wrong. Say what is different about the two.
  • Something asks for an administrator password. Say so in your question rather than typing it anywhere unexpected, and never paste a password here.

When a conversation would be faster

  • Ask in lab. For installation problems especially—somebody looking at your actual screen beats any number of messages.
  • 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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