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CITS2002 Systems Programming - Week-3 Survey (2024)

• Finding a partner for the projects is heartbreaking since I don't already know anyone else in this unit.
  Please post on our help2002 forum (tag your post) to ask for a 1st project partner.
• I want to learn more about low-level computer knowledge such as memory allocation, thread and process management, and I hope the content is similar to CMU's 15-213 course.
  Please look at our unit's Schedule, and you'll see those topics coming up.
• As a slow learner myself, I find it difficult to keep up with the labs as I take time to understand and resolve the issues
• Difficult but fun.
• It's probably my favourite of the CITS units so far.
  Thank you; let's hope it stays that way!
• It's okay
• The unit is being presented nicely, I'm only struggling to keep up because of my other subjects. Chris and the facilitators are all very helpful and generally the information on the forums addresses my issues.
  Thank you
• Wow! there is a lot more content than expected, despite being warned by lots of people and already having high expectations. I didn't think the readings were going to be SO important or take so long (in a lot of units they aren't necessary since the content will be covered in lectures anyway), but they are crucial to understanding the basics. I am somewhat behind in the content just because I think it takes a couple of weeks to realise the sheer amount of work you have to do to keep up. Chris is an awesome lecturer, he moves quite quickly and will assume the students already know a lot of stuff - which I realise is because the students need to be doing a LOT of work outside of lectures to understand the lecture and workshop content at all. I assumed most learning would happen in the lectures but I learned through experience that most of your learning will happen in your own time. Now I'm just working double-time to make sure Im all caught up! Intro to Python was very 'hand-holding' (in a good way!) and all the content you needed was in the lectures so it just takes a lot of adjusting to get used to the workload and self-teaching in CITS2002.
• may need more instruction on how to use c to program, like some more introduction to using c
• yeah i just wanted to comment that the reading material is relly good More time needs to be spent on c syntax (since if we don't know the syntax we could be spending hours on non-chilli lab questions that were designed to be easy), learning how and when to use functions like atoi (searching google for 'convert string to integer' brings up functions like sscanf which is really confusing). And general differences to introductory languages like python
• I am a Bachelor's student, majoring in Electrical Engineering who has taken this unit with the expectation that this unit would be easy. I would like to dedicate some time to discuss things with Chris because I'm a lot more behind in this unit than I'd like to admit. Hopefully I can make it to a catch-up session.
  Certainly; my contact details are on our unit's webpage, you may ask questions via our help forum, or come along to our Wednesday 'catch-up' sessions.
• I am struggling with coding, I wish we had some classes that were more focused on coding.
• Lab is okay and can work hard to solve it, but too difficult for the lecture is more and more fast like blow up.
• too hard
• I guess I was expecting to be doing more low-level OS type programming (e.g. building a kernel module or something like that?). Perhaps we are still getting to that part though. So far it has been a beginner intro to C course.
  Unfortunately, we don't get that deep into operating system internals and, as you'll see from other students' comments, many would struggle with that level of programming.
• This unit is quite fast paced, and with someone who only has experience in python, the syntax is confusing and it seems like we are just expected to know it already. I feel like this is a third year unit, and some other cits units should have been a prerequisite to better prepare for the expectations this unit has. For me, this is going to be a hope to pass unit rather than a hope to do well, as I feel I will have to do a lot of extra work on the side, just to keep up.
• A two-hour seminar is better than two one-hour seminars because we effectively have 45 minutes per hour. Dr. Macdonald also tried to make the lecture easier to understand, so the pace was slow at the beginning but sped up towards the end.
  Many students find it difficult to concentrate through 2-hour lecture (which is still only 90 minutes of material, with a break between halves). The 3rd-year unit that I present (and other later year units) do have 2-hour lectures, because more students are working professionally and find it difficult to come to campus too many days per week.
• Sometimes the professor may think we already knew some knowledge but actually we don't know, something like Pointer
  There's no assumption that you already understand pointers (I've stated a few times that an understanding is not yet required). We will cover them in Lectures 11 and 12, practice the use of pointers in 2 labsheets, and then use (require) them in the 2nd project.
• Chris is a fantastic lecturer with a clear passion for what he teaches which makes this class very enjoyable. I love hearing about the fun facts and other knowledge he randomly mentions during lectures. The labs actually feel valuable and enjoyable to do instead of feeling a bit mudane and like a chore. Good unit so far.
• I'd really like learning objectives per lecture/per topic, just so I can understand what to review each week after looking through content. Just as a note, the labs take me at least six hours to get through, but I appreciate the content and I'm definitely learning a lot :)
  I don't really understand the need for fine-grained learning objectives for each lecture. Each has 12-14 slides, their titles provide a 'minimal' summary of the slide, and each lecture has some recommended reading listed on our Schedule page. Can you please expand on what you think would help?
• Yes, do narrow down and emphasise on the important topics to focus on, instead of normally (might not be you but other tutors) telling us to study the whole book or providing us unrelated past years questions, my memories are limited and are the main reason I'm doing badly
  Please look at our unit's Schedule, which lists the short sections of recommended reading for each lecture (which certainly doesn't amount to a whole book).
• So far (end of week 3), the lectures and labs feel pretty disconnected. The labs have been about the C language so the lectures about hardware and operating systems do not feel useful yet. Perhaps it would be better to focus the entirety of the first few weeks to the C language and then start the other topics?
• Also as I have some prior programming experience in Python, the labs are very useful as they are not difficult which means that I spend more time getting used to the different syntax and functions instead of solving the problem (which is good).
  Thanks for your comment. As all students have passed at least one other programming unit, I would hope that more students feel the same way.
• I would like having some sort of mandatory practise each week
• little bit more handholding in terms of the lab content, hints along the way and simpler explanation as to what things are and why
• Presentation of the lectures is a little slow, so we need to review the rest of the slides by ourselves, or Chris has to cover in the next lecture so we fall behind
• unit is very good.
• The pace is a little bit too far.
• Dr. Chris McDonald is a very engaging lecturer, he makes complex concepts accessible and enjoyable. His sense of humour keeps lectures fun and motivates me not to miss a single one!
• It was very enjoyable; I feel like the workshops are the main part that helped me the most. Working through higher-level questions helps with my learning style (breaking down larger examples and noting line by line to translate them into smaller examples). Sometimes, I feel like certain important parts aren't given enough time or mentioned too quickly. For example, void not returning any output but having print statements in it has stumped me a bit, and I need to go back and review it, which I'm more than happy to do, but later in the semester when time restricts me, time key features may need a bit more consolidation.
• The initial jump into c programming should be a more guided process as it leaves beginners Into programming like me lost, and then confused on how yo get back on track
  One suggestion made in lectures and by lab facilitators is to think about, if not develop, a solution in your first language (probably Python), and then try to convert the ideas to C.
• The lecturer explanation pace has to be slower when teaching regarding codes.( whether it is during the lecture days or the workshop)
• My lack of attendance at labs and usage of help forum should not reflect that they are not useful, rather that I have just not found a need for them yet: I have no doubt I will use them at some point.
• Would be nice to see the cits site migrated with LMS
  Could you please identify how the material would be better in LMS? I have lots of past student feedback stating their preference for it to be outside of LMS (and students not taking the unit would be locked-out of the material if LMS was used).
• content presented in the lecture is slightly difficult to understand. the way things are worded can be confusing and require a bit more time to process
• For a clumsy beginner like me, I don't know the boundaries of C language learning. I know that knowledge knows no boundaries, so when I want to understand the weekly slides, labs, workshops, and reference books, it often takes me more than 15 hours to sort out their concepts for the first time. For me, there was a lot of material, and I needed to have a thorough grasp of a concept before I could continue learning. This is a bit difficult, such as overflow, as a parameter of functions, elastic array members and other concepts, the teacher did not explain in depth in the class, but when I studied on my own, I found that many places mentioned these, and even in these parts of the function have already involved the problem of pointers, and we have not yet started to learn them. I guess it's the reason I'm stupid, but I feel like I'm swimming in the endless ocean, and I'm a little tired as a beginner swimmer. If I only had this one unit in a semester, I would have been able to study better. It's a pity that I need to divide the time between the four units equally. Therefore, if there is a more obvious range of knowledge points in the exam-oriented type, it will greatly reduce the pressure.
• I would prefer the content of lectures to stick closer to lecture slides; also would like an additional hour of (recorded) lecture time to cover more content. (sorry those weren't really general comments, just my strong opinions)