First deadline

Tomorrow is the last day of our intensive 2-week C++ course, and next week we start on systems architecture, logic programming, and such, as well as continuing C++ at a slightly slower pace. To mark the end of intensive C++ we will be given our first formal assignment. We get two weeks to complete it, and there are three lab sessions (when there will be TAs available to answer questions while we work on the lab computers) in that time. This sounds OK. But at the same time tomorrow they will give us another six equivalent problems. We don't have to hand them in at all! Instead they're for practicing on. Because as soon as we get back after Christmas we will be set an eighth problem, this time to be completed not in two weeks, but in two hours under exam conditions. This amuses me because it's so obviously ludicrously ambitious. Our assignment and the six practice questions are all just exam papers from previous years of the course.

I'm really looking forward to the logic programming. And I have met a few more humanities people on the course, which is good. We had some interesting discussions which I'd like to post about if only I hadn't used up all my energy on trying to manipulate linked lists of nodes.