Welcome to the CS 106A web site for Winter 2009-10!

Important course information will be posted on this web page and announced in class. You are responsible for all material that appears here and should check this page for updates frequently.


Week of March 14
  • Review Session, 7:00-9:00pm, Sunday, March 14

  • Final exam, 12:15-3:15 on either Monday, March 15 or Friday, March 19. Both exams are in Hewlett 200 (the regular classroom. For additional details, please see the Practice Finals.

Week of March 1
  • YEAH Hours for Adventure are Wednesday from 4:15-6:15 in Art2.

  • If you are up for a challenge, a much expanded version of the Crowther FORTRAN-based Adventure game is now running on the Stanford cluster machines (corn, pod, myth). Use ssh to connect to one of those machines (or login on the console if you are physically at one of them) and type the following command:

        ~eroberts/newadv

    This game is a synthesis of the versions by Willie Crowther and Don Woods, but also includes a number of extensions made at Wellesley College, either by me or by Mark Edwards, who was a history professor there at the time.

    The newadv game has some wonderful puzzles. In particular, the puzzle of getting the cloak from the wumpus is one of my favorites in all the Adventure games I've ever played. Also, the problem of getting the diadem out of the crystal box was designed by the winner of the first Adventure Contest I ever conducted, Wellesley student Kristin Powers.

Week of February 21
  • On Sunday the Face Pamphlet server was down between 7:30PM and 9:30PM but CS106A is humming along once again. As a reminder we will not be grading you using the online repository. All that is required is that your assignment works on the repositoryStub. Happy coding!

  • Answers to some frequenty asked facepamphlet questions:
    • A common misconception is that images are stored in the facepamphlet repository by filename. Images are not stored using a filename. Instead images are stored using a string representation of their pixels which you can translate / reversetranslate to a GImage by calling the methods repository.convertStringToGImage and repository.convertGImageToString respectivly.
    • Some students have asked us how one gets the wall data for a specific user. The wall is a field whose value is represented as a string just like status or image so you access it using the repository.getProperty method. Hypothetically you could also set your wall using repository.setProperty but its much safer/cleaner to use the method repository.sendMessage
    • As more people join the network there is the possibility that the server will crash. Here's what to do if that happens (a) let us know (b) don't panic. You can make a fully functional facepamphlet using just the FPRepositoryStub. Finally the health of the network is in our hands! If we all do our testing offline, our programatic oversights can be debugged without taking down the cs106a social network.
    • Any other questions? Feel free to email either Chris Piech or your Section Leader!

  • YEAH Hours for Face Pamphlet are Wednesday from 4:15-6:15 in Gates B02.

Week of February 14
  • Changes were made to the post-midterm half of the course. We've replaced the second problem with an extra credit problem set. We've added an additional late day (everyone now has 3) and we've added a lecture day on assignment #5. For more details read:


Week of February 7
  • YEAH Hours for Yahtzee are Monday from 3-5 in Gates 200. Come for help and hints.

  • If any of you feel that you were unfairly disadvantaged on the midterm because of the crowded room (if, for example, you ended up having to sit on the floor), we will accept requests to take a makeup midterm if you let us know you want one before class on Friday, February 12. To request one, send a message to eroberts@cs.stanford.edu stating (1) the circumstances that you found unfair and (2) a two-hour block next week at which you could take a makeup midterm.

  • The midterm exam is scheduled for two different times on Tuesday, February 9:
    • 3:15-5:15pm in McCullough 115
    • 7:00-9:00pm in Hewlett 201
    Please remember that the exam is open book.

  • The Powerpoint slides from the midterm review are available in the Lectures area on the web site.

  • The due date for the Graphics Contest has been postponed to Wednesday, February 10.

Week of January 18th
  • If you are running a Windows Vista or Windows 7 machine you might notice that the application height for breakout is slightly incorrect (it includes the menu bar at the top of the screen). No points will be deducted if this problem causes your breakout to be slightly misaligned. If you are interested in fixing this problem you can download the new Breakout starter code which has a fix for the bug.

  • The YEAH (Your Early Assignment Help) session for breakout is scheduled to be Monday, January 25th, from 1:15-3:15 in Gates 259.

  • Owing to a communications failure on my part, we didn't make copies of two handouts today, both of which are now up on the web:

    We'll bring copies to class on Friday, but you will probably want to look at the web copies before submitting Assignment #2.

  • As I mentioned in class, I’m continuing a long tradition of showing Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech from the 1963 March on Washington this Monday, January 18, at 3:15pm in Gates B-12. If you want to come, use your Stanford ID to enter Gates through the big curving doors on the side of the building facing Gilbert Biology. Go down the stairs and turn right at the hallway. Gates B-12 will be on your left a few doors down.

For issues or comments on this web page, please send mail to the TAs.