9. Concurrency (LA Review - Sp15)

[lmock]

Your Name:

Overview of Lab Comments: i.e. Was this lab good or bad? Too fast? Too Slow? Does it need something new?

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- [ ] Page Link:
      Type of Issue: i.e. (code) bug, grammar, typo, lack of clarity, etc
      Severity: i.e. "prevents students from continuing", "minor inconvenience", etc
      Comments: Description of the problem, what can be done to fix it, etc.
- [ ] Page Link:
      Type of Issue: i.e. (code) bug, grammar, typo, lack of clarity, etc
      Severity: i.e. "prevents students from continuing", "minor inconvenience", etc
      Comments: Description of the problem, what can be done to fix it, etc.

Summary of lab assistant comments:

(strikethroughs in the comments imply that I've added the comment to this summary section, not necessarily that it has been resolved)

• [ ] Is this page still a concurrency bug? It might actually work on the current snap version.
• [ ] Formally introduce "launch"

[susanshen96]

Your Name: Susan Shen

~~Overview of Lab Comments: I think this lab gives a good overview of concurrency and the errors that might follow from race conditions. I think the final section about concurrency errors is super useful because questions about it were on the quest, midterm, and final – it was very helpful to grasp that all permutations would be considered in a concurrency race, thanks to the lab’s explanation.~~

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• [ ] ~~Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-debug.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Mis-information       Severity: Might confuse students       Comments: It says that there might be a slight concurrency issue with the parallel drawing function, in that the first stamps for 1 and 2 will not be printed. However, when I run the code on Snap!, there seems to be no error…was the given code accidentally correct? I remember running into this issue, or lack thereof, last year – apparently it was a freebie. But it might be useful to clarify whether or not there is actually a bug.~~

[megancarey]

Your Name: Megan Carey

~~Overview of Lab Comments: Definitely an informative lab! As a general statement, and I know that this is a really, really minor thing, I think that the passages of text at the beginning of the lab might be broken up by images or key words could be emboldened just to make the reading a tiny bit more interesting.~~

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• [ ] ~~Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-play-1.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: minor       Comments: I think that the students would benefit from a more direct explanation of what the launch block does. I had to go back and look at the block in Snap!, and it is totally possible that the students learned about this recently, but if not, an explanation of launch in a preceding slide might be useful.~~
• [ ] ~~Page Link:       Type of Issue: bug       Severity: high       Comments: When I ran the code in the starter file, which was supposed to be buggy and missing the first stamps of the blue lines, the stamps were not missing... I don't see what the students are supposed to fix?~~
• [ ] ~~Page Link: Type of Issue: typo Severity: low Comments: Just missing a period at the end of the sentence.~~

[ilinabg]

Your Name: Ilina Bhaya-Grossman

Overview of Lab Comments: I thought the card sorting beginning was good but I thought that all of the card sorting slides could be condensed into one, it looks a bit odd to have one line on each page. I think it's overall a very relaxed lab with not too much for them to solve. Maybe a little fast? But I think the material is interesting and useful to know.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-machine-concepts.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue:Lack of clarity       Severity: i.e. minor       Comments: I wasn't sure what the slide meant by models of machine the student should develop? What should they be developing?
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-debug.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: i.e. (code) bug       Severity: i.e. major       Comments: I don't see any bug that students have to fix.

[candidia]

Your Name: Florin-James Langer

Overview of Lab Comments: Once again, the in person activities with a partner are so great. I think this lab is overall very good. I like all the given files, as it saves time so the students don't have to make each one. I found no errors, but I found some things that would make it clearer for students to understand, through utilizing the formatting of the pages.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/sorting/cards/card-sorting.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: nonissue       Severity: nonsevere       Comments: The cards are in an awkward position on the page, since they're only taking up only the left side of the page and at first glance, it was just a tad confusing with the ...s. I would utilize the entire page to have rows of all the cards in order.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-machine-concepts.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: clarity       Severity: nonsevere       Comments: In the three models, it would be helpful to bold the important parts, like the actual definitions that are hidden within all of the examples.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-play-1.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: giving answer       Severity: no learning       Comments: the answer is right below the problem. it should really be a hover over to see the answer or on the next page, so that students aren't tempted to just keep reading before trying it.

[nzoghb]

Your Name: Nicolas Zoghb

Overview: An overall useful lab that introduces students to the technical side of CPUs, their capabilities, as well as their limitations. While the opening activity to the lab is one of the most fun and exciting in the semester, its write-up in the lab is also the most problematic.

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Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/sorting/cards/card-sorting-discuss.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html Type of Issue: clarity Severity: minor but annoying Comments: the aforementioned page, as well as the next two or three could all easily be combined into one page to provide a clearer, more concise set of instructions. Reading a broken-down break down of what students are going to be doing in the lab while they do them is jarring to say the least. In all probability, students will get to the page, leave their stations to carry out the lab activity (supervised by the TA) and then return to their stations and proceed to skip passed these pages.

Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/concurrency-in-real-life.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html Type of Issue: unknown vocab Severity: potentially confusing Comments: the words 'concurrency,' 'serial,' and 'parallel' appear on this page despite the fact that they have not been explained prior to this. Students will not be able to carry out the specified task without knowing what these words mean.

[thorsoch]

Your Name: Charles Thorson

Overview of Lab Comments: It's a fun lab. But it has always had a bit buggy feeling, even on the exercises that are working correctly. However, it is also highly important lab as the problems of parallelizing is hard to illustrate inside code without these visually clear examples. One concern I had is the watch and learn orientation taken by this lab. Since students will not be integrating much of their own code, it is very easy for them to just gloss over the exercises without much thought.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/concurrency-in-real-life.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: clarity       Severity: minor       Comments: "With a partner or in a group, please share a non-computer, real-life example in which the serial portion of some task is the smallest (i.e., embarassingly parallel) and is the greatest (i.e., most difficult to parallelize)." This may cause confusion with vocabulary such as parallel. Might be better to include a brief explanation earlier on. Although, they probably should have heard it in lecture. Also embarrassingly is spelled wrong.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-debug.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: bug       Severity: eliminates exercise       Comments: The first blue squares are stamped although the page says they are not.

[sayabe]

Your Name: Satok Ayabe

Overview of Lab Comments: the lab was well paced, and I think that the cards example was nice to introduce students to the concepts. Also, making them think about diminishing returns/efficiency using a real world example would help them understand the limitations of concurrency easier.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/concurrency-in-real-life.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: i.e. lack of clarity       Severity: i.e. minor inconvenience       Comments: I think that students will be confused about what we mean by "parallelized". I think if we provide description of what 'parallelized' means, it would be more helpful to students (e.g. "the work can be shared into equal workloads among a lot of people" etc.)
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-machine-concepts.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: i.e. (code) bug, grammar, typo, lack of clarity, etc       Severity: i.e. minor inconvenience       Comments: I'm not sure if students are familiar with what we mean by core. Like in the parallelize example from above, maybe we can explain what we mean (e.g. "the central power of the computer" etc.)

[amy97]

Your Name: Amy Vatcha

Overview of Lab Comments: -This lab is listed on GitHub as Lab 10 but is Lab 9 on the CS10 website. -The card sorting game introduces students to the practical aspects of concurrency before diving into the technical aspects and is a great opportunity for students to brainstorm ideas as a team. -Relating concurrency to speed has been introduced early in the lab, which is good since it is the key to understanding the necessity of concurrency and parallelism in coding

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-debug.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Bug       Severity: Minor Inconvenience       Comments: The instructions say that the code will have the first square missing and the students need to debug that code but when I opened the starter file there was no such bug so that is confusing.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/read-and-finish-with-n-answer-snap.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Lack of clarity       Severity: Minor Inconvenience       Comments: The information on this page would be much more readable if it was in tabular form and compared the different situations side-by-side.

[morganewing]

Your Name: Morgan Ewing

Overview of Lab Comments: First, I like that the beginning is a hands-on activity that helps demonstrate concurrency in the real world. However, I would suggest putting the answer to the first Snap activity on the next page so that students are more inclined to figure the answer out themselves. Overall, I think that the activities are effective at demonstrating parallelism and race conditions while moving at a good pace. I think that the last two pages also contain helpful/straightforward tips for moving forward with parallelism.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-machine-concepts.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: clarity       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: The sentence "The programming environment is full of concurrency, implicit (two scripts both start when the green flag is clicked, or when they receive the same broadcast message), and explicit (the launch block)" should probably be split up into two sentences so it is easier to read without the parentheses (ie. with a second sentence describing implicit and explicit).
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/overview-snap-2.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: grammar       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: The sentence "Let's explore some of the fun/challenges of concurrent programming, nondeterminism." is grammatically incorrect and should read something like "Let's explore some of the fun/challenges of concurrent programming by looking at nondeterminism." Also, throughout this page, there are many repeated words like "this" or "result" which could be eliminated. The last sentence is also slightly confusing because of the many commas.

[cynthiaha]

Your Name: Cynthia Ha

Overview of Lab Comments: -I really like the card sorting game at the beginning - it is a fun and easy way to introduce the students to the idea of concurrency. -The concept of concurrency and parallelism may be difficult for students to grasp immediately, but I think the lab moves at a good pace and is very clear in explaining these ideas -The reflection pages are useful because they give students the time to consolidate what they have learnt from the lab so far

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-debug.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Bug       Severity: prevents students from being able to complete exercise       Comments: Students are asked to debug the code in the starter file. However, I could not find any need for debugging in the starter file - which defeats the purpose of that exercise.

[18epedersen]

Your name: Emily Pedersen

Overview of Lab Comments: As a student of CS10, I really enjoyed the card sorting activity. I think it really demonstrates that doing things concurrently can make processes go faster, but also shows that errors might arise if you don't communicate correctly between people, in this case, or more generally between parts. I also think the lab does a good job of introducing nondeterminism, determinism, and race conditions by making the students implement different examples of concurrency and seeing the results.

Page link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-machine-concepts.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html Type of Issue: lack of clarity Severity: might prevent students from moving on Comments: When I was reading the introduction to implicit vs. explicit parallelism, I found myself having to read over the sentence two or three times. I would just emphasizing what those two terms mean more, because after reading it I still didn't really get a sense of the key differences between those terms.

Page link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-debug.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html Type of issue: mis leading information severity: might prevent students from moving on Comments: From my experience, I couldn't find a bug running this code. I remember last semester when I did this lab I encountered the same problem, or I guess lack of a problem. This might stump students and prevent them from moving on with the lab.

[papratt]

Your Name: Paige Pratt

Overview of Lab Comments: The lab is good and although it has some pretty confusing concepts it explains things pretty well. I think a couple of examples can be used in a few places but that is it. It is a well paced lab that I'm sure student can complete in time.

• [ ] http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/concurrency-in-real-life.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Lack of clarity       Severity: may confuse students       Comments: When students are asked to discuss different examples of concurrency issues it isn't explained well and can be confusing. Perhaps making sure the TA mentions some examples or give some examples in the slide.
• [ ] http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/reflection-snap-3.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: possible confusion       Severity: possibly big inconvenience if students don't understand       Comments: Thread Safe Scripts can be a bit confusing so perhaps adding an example would be helpful so students can see the difference.

[keehansullivan]

Sean Sullivan

Overview of lab comments: Lots of new vocabulary and concepts introduced in this lab! I feel like this is one of the most important labs for doing well on the programming part of the tests apart from recursion. Although the lab was well done in packing all the needed information, a lot of it was worded in ways that would be difficult for new students to understand. I could not point out one specific thing that made the lab confusing, however if I were to do it with a partner or a TA it should be done easily and quickly.

[carolinekim]

Your Name: Caroline Kim

Overview of Lab Comments: The concept of concurrency can be understood better through the different card exercises the students will perform in the beginning of the lab. I remember how helpful the exercise was when I first learned the concept of concurrency. The lab is generally easy for the students to understand. Many other lab reviews seem to be stating that the debugging question is already debugged, but it seems that the program still has a bug when I run the code on my computer (maybe the issue has already been resolved).

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-machine-concepts.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Lack of clarity       Severity: Prevents students from continuing       Comments: Before the explanation of the models, the lab states, "There are three important models of the machine you should develop." It is not clear as to what exactly the students should be doing. The lab seems to have the students simply read the descriptions and understand the different concepts, but the word "develop" makes it seem like the students need to create something, and therefore is confusing.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-play-1.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: The answer is given       Severity: Minor inconvenience       Comments: The answer to the problem/question is given directly below the question. It would be nice if the answer was given on the next page so that students can think about the problem and come up with their own answers instead of simply reading the given answer.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/read-and-finish-with-n-script-snap.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: Lack of clarity       Severity: Minor inconvenience       Comments: When students are trying to find out what the code does and what kind of results the code will return, clarifying what the "hold" variable is (defining the "hold" variable) will be helpful.

[meghnac]

Name: Meghna Chatterjee

The names seem to be switched on github (on the course website, Concurrency is listed as Lab 9, while Recursive Reporters is listed as lab 10). The card sorting activity will be extremely effective in visually explaining the concept of concurrency and parallelism. Overall, I think the lab is pretty good at explaining concurrency.

• [ ] Page Link: http://beautyjoy.github.io/bjc-r/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-play-1.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&course=cs10_sp15.html&novideo&noreading&noassignment Type of issue: Bug Severity: Prevents students from moving on (possibly) Comments: May be an issue with my computer but when I click on the LaunchTutorial, Snap! fails to load.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-debug.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html Type of issue: Lack of clarity, confusion Severity: Prevents students from moving on Comments: Spent a while looking at it, but I couldn't find anything wrong in the given code. If there is something wrong, it may have to be made clearer. Otherwise, should be clarified that there is nothing wrong -- students may be stuck for a while trying to think of what is wrong. If I remember correctly, this issue popped up last semester as well so may just be a leftover error that still needs to be addressed.

[benlsmith]

Name: Benjamin Smith

Overview of Lab Comments: This lab introduced many important ideas and concepts that are used for programming throughout this and future classes. I like that the lab starts with the card sorting exercise to help introduce the idea on concurrency through a real life, and very informative manner. The wording in many slides was a bit confusing but i believe that it wont take away from the ideas that this lab puts forward, and the students will be able to grasp the ideas very easily.

Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-machine-concepts.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html Type of issue: Clarity Severity: minor Comments: the wording in the last bullet point got a bit confusing and i feel that students may decide to skip many of the reading parts that seem to be a bit more confusing than other parts.

[JiazhenChen]

Your Name: Jiazhen Chen

Overview of Lab Comments: The lab is a good. It's in nice pace. Not too long or short. The card-shifting game is a nice illustration. But I think there's no need to separate the instructions for the game into several pages. The whole game will be done together by the whole lab. Most of the instructions will be given by the TAs, and not many people will read the instrctions while playing the game. I think may be we can condense the pages and just list them in one page so it can be read after the game as a review. The examples for the concurrency part is interesting and lively, but I think there's still some parts appear to be a little confusing to me as I listed below.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-debug.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: maybe prevents students from continuing       Comments: There's no answer or hint for this buggy question. I test the program myself but still can't find the proper solution... I understand that when they're called seperately, there'll be no missing stamp and the missing one maybe due to the time difference when called. But I just can't come up with a way to fix it immediately... I'm not sure whether other students will have the same problem with me or not. But I think maybe given a bit hint or add the solutions in the next page will help a lot.
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/reflection-snap-3.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: minor inconvenience       Comments: This page introduces a new idea "Thread Safe Scripts". I'm a bit confused about the different outcomes between have the "Thread Safe Scripts" checked or have it not checked. Maybe giving an example of having it checked and not checked will help the students understand its importance better. If the example is not available, more detailed written illustration may also help.

[anushasyed]

Name: Anusha Syed

Overview: I think the activity at the beginning of this lab is perfect and really helps with all the concepts introduced through the rest of the lab. Overall, I think the exercises in this lab are great and help with overall understanding, but since it is such a short lab, I don't think it would hurt to add another exercise or two using the broadcast.

[soham14]

Your Name: Soham Kudtarkar

Overview: I found this lab to be very well organized! I felt that the concepts that it went over were pretty thoroughly explained, and I remember that the card activity at the beginning of the lab was a very useful and interactive way of understanding concurrency for me when I took CS 10. The only problem that I had with the lab was that it seemed like there was too much reading and not enough opportunities to practice. Overall, the lab was very instructive, but could use a bit more practice of concurrency.

[seunghalee]

Your Name: Seungha Lee

Overview of Lab Comments: Overall, I found the lab helpful in understanding concurrency and determinism/nondeterminism. The card sorting activity could be condensed into one page. Also, I found the debugging exercise a bit confusing and challenging.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/sorting/cards/card-sorting-reflect.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: page does not load       Severity: prevents students from continuing
• [ ] Page Link:http://snap.berkeley.edu/snapsource/snap.html#open:http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/prog/Snap/race-condition-snap.xml       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: minor       Comments: The lab says the finish is always "123" when you answer "yes," but when I tried tying "yes" on Snap!, it says the finish is always "321".

[MaazUddin11]

Your Name: Maaz Uddin

Overview of Lab Comments: Definitely one of the most important labs. I remember using the concepts of concurrency greatly on both my midterm and final project, and without this lab, I probably would not have been able to identify the problems. It is very clear and effective, although I feel some of the explanations can get kind of confusing and ambiguous.

• [1] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-play-1.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity:minor inconvenience       Comments: What confused me now (as well as last year) was the use of the word thread. Simply by looking at the block I was quite confused by what thread meant. And I think that the students should be able to predict what a certain code would do without necessarily having to run it.
• [2] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/sorting/cards/card-sorting-reflect.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: broken link?       Severity: prevents students from continuing       Comments: As I was progressing through the lab, right at the beginning, there's a page that didn't work for me. It's the "Card Sorting: Reflect" page. I don't think it's too important in this lab, but it's still something that could be beneficial to understanding the lab better.
• [3 ] Page Link:http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/read-and-finish-with-n-script-snap.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: decent       Comments: I found this page to be really confusing. I could follow the code, but some of the variables were very vague and it took a good 5-7 minutes to predict how answering "yes" (and even less so "no") would make the code run. Once I did figure it out, I still didn't understand why answering yes would always run in the order n = 3, n = 2, n = 1.

[Rshahatit]

Your Name: Rami Shahatit

Overview of Lab Comments: I liked this lab. I like the fact that some of it is not on the computer to give students a better perspective of CS which is what i feel the whole course is about. I also like the the fact that we give them real life examples of concurrency. I don't know if my eyes are just getting bad but I feel like the font is weird, meaning it is hard to read on my eyes.

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Page Link: screen shot 2015-02-24 at 12 30 09 am I don't know if my eyes are just getting bad but I feel like the font is weird in this section, meaning it is hrd to read on my eyes. Type of Issue: lack of clarity in presentation       Severity:"minor inconvenience"       Comments: Description of the problem, what can be done to fix it, etc. Page Link: the "Launch tutorial"       Type of Issue: I had a problem getting the sprite to stop moving       Severity: i.e. "medium inconvenience"       Comments: Well the problem is that i cant make the sprite start over by being a small circle that gets bigger. It never stops moving so i cant try it again without launching the page again.

[Stantlers]

Your Name: Stanley Ho Overview of Lab Comments: I liked the hands on card sorting part of the lab. Overall, I think the lab does a good job teaching the major concepts. I think the "What are the possible values?" page should have the link to the blocks on the same page rather than on the next page.

[ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/sorting/cards/card-sorting-reflect.html topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html Type of Issue: Doesn't Load. Severity: Inconvience Comments: It's the part telling them to reflect on the card sort. However, I think this may be my own computer's issue, but just in case.

[frankyguerrero]

Your Name: Rocio Guerrero

Overview of Lab Comments: I like how there is a beginning activity away from the computer. I think it helps students grasp the concept of concurrency before actually going into the coding. I also like how the graphics of the page were put in place this time with better explanations of the card sorting game, which I don't remember seeing from the last time I took this class. I also think the analogies for concurrency are a great help in understanding the concepts. Overall, a good lab because it really focused on understanding the concept of concurrency.

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/sorting/cards/card-sorting-reflect.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&course=cs10_sp15.html&novideo&noreading&noassignment       Type of Issue: page does not load       Severity: i.e. prevents students from continuing       Comments: I thought this was just on my computer but looking at the comment above, it happened to others too!
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/reflection-snap-3.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&course=cs10_sp15.html&novideo&noreading&noassignment       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: low, very minor       Comments: I think there are more technical terms than even I could understand like "keep all of your inner data structures consistent" or "preserve your Loop Invariants"...but perhaps the TA could just explain the importance of using the Thread Safe Scripts more.

[jesslarson]

Your Name: Jessica Larson

Overview of Lab Comments: I liked the idea of going through and doing a physical exercise to figure out a strategy, but I feel like it is more effective to do it as a class because it ensures it is done. If people aren't doing the lab in pairs, or they don't feel like doing it, they can easily skip it and miss out on the intuition behind the lab. Overall, I think the lab contains too many pre-made blocks and doesn't allow the students to program as much as they should be. Too much reading/clicking and not enough thinking.

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• [ ] Page Link:http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-play-1.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: clarity/confusion       Severity: just a little confusing       Comments: The launch block is used without any reference to what it does or anything saying "hey you don't need to worry about what this block does now"
• [ ] Page Link:http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-debug.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: confusing       Severity: annoying/confusing       Comments: It is hard to understand what the step block is doing, and I anticipate a lot of questions on this page. I also feel that this page isn't that helpful considering how confusing it is.

[msilva926]

Melanie Silva

Overview of Lab Comments: I thought the lab was effective in teaching about concurrency and the card activity helps make the concept clearer.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/sorting/cards/card-sorting-reflect.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: page access       Severity: prevents students from doing part of a lab       Comments: When I click the "Card Sorting: reflect" link, it does not let me access the page.
• [ ] Page Link:http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-machine-concepts.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: none       Severity: none       Comments: I found that the analogies on the page are clear and helpful in understanding concurrency
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-debug.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: lack of clarity       Severity: "minor inconvenience"       Comments: The instructions are a little unclear and maybe needs some more guidance on what to look for when debugging.

[janicechui]

Janice Chui

The lab makes good use of examples to clarify the concept of concurrency. The screenshots used effectively show what the question is asking the student to do.

Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/overview-snap-3.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html   Type of Issue:grammar    Severity: minor       Comments: " is broadcasted multiple times"

[eurieoh]

Eurie Oh

I didn't find anything in particular that was wrong with the lab. I think that it explained concurrency clearly and gave good examples for students so that they would understand the concept thoroughly. Also after several long labs, having a short one like this I think gives the students time to catch up on previous ones.

[chnicoloso]

Your Name: Christian Lista-Nicoloso

Overview of Lab Comments: This was a good lab, it did a good job of explaining all the big ideas. I specifically liked the "Snap Machine Concepts" section (http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/snap-machine-concepts.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html)

I think that analogies like these are always helpful. What I wish the lab went a little more into, is the "So what?" the student learns about why computer scientist might want to use concurrency, but I think we should make it clear that this is something that they can use in their projects and home works. I know the class is not supposed to go too deep, but I remember that when I did this lab for the first time, a lot seemed very abstract and unusable by me.

• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/read-and-finish-with-n-script-snap.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: miss-write. Says to expect the wrong answer       Severity: i.e. will probably confuse the student       Comments: In the lab, it says that the RaceCondition file should always return "123" when answering 'yes" but it really returns "321"

[robrodz]

Your Name: Robert Rodriguez

Overview of Lab Comments: i.e. Was this lab good or bad? Too fast? Too Slow? Does it need something new?

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• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/sorting/cards/card-sorting-reflect.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: i.e. broken link       Severity: prevents students from continuing
• [ ] Page Link: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/labs/cur/programming/concurrency/snap/read-and-finish-with-n-script-snap.html?topic=berkeley_bjc%2Fareas%2Fconcurrency.topic&novideo&noreading&noassingment&course=cs10_sp15.html       Type of Issue: i.e. (code) bug, lack of clarity       Severity: confusing       Comments: Difficult to understand the problem. The instructions say that setting deterministic to "yes" should print finish as "123" but always ends up printing it as "321"