File xcomQE.html    Author Bill McKeeman    Copyright © 2007    index

It is accepted in the industry that giving software to students will expose many bugs. It is not so much a result of "1000 monkeys at the keyboard" but rather fresh eyes in front of a curious mind. New users do the darndest things.... take it from me.

I have ported my compiler teaching tools from C++ to MATLAB over a period of 2 years 2005-2007. Since them I have added a couple of features and done some refactoring. This M version of xcom is working, but it has gaps in the implementation and has been used by me in a class only a few times. Neither the code documentation nor the course materials have been carefully reviewed. 7000 lines of M code, 7000 lines of HTML, and 5000 lines of TeX. There be bugs here!

I do not think the raw nature of the materials will intefere much with the learning experience. Finding a good bug is instructive. Being suspicious of the materials is much better for learning than a "the instructor must be right" attitude.

I will be very appreciative of any help you (the students) can give me. The MathWorks file exchange has a public comments section for each submission. Feel free to use it. An email is probably the best way to get longer ideas to me. Try mckeeman{at}cs.dartmouth.edu.

Any concern of yours is a concern of mine. Spelling, clumsy wording, dead URL links, bugs, inefficiencies.... and so on and on and on.

Bug Reports

Author/Date of Report:__________________________________________
Nature of Problem:______________________________________________
Evidence of Problem:____________________________________________
Suggestions for Fix:____________________________________________