1) Essay

Why did you decide to take this module? Do you still it was the right decision?
 

1. I wanted to learn software engineering skills. Yes I learned a whole lot of stuff during this course.

2. i felt I needed more deliberate practice. not sure if its the right decision. I'll decide on that end of the semester because morale is pretty low at this point.

3. map over software engineering project...

4. i think it is considering software engineering project sounds really boring

5. I wanted to learn more about software engineering.

6. I would like to learn more about software engineering, involve in a practical project.
So far, it is right decision.

7. In order of importance:
To learn iOS programming.
UI programming.
To get used to high work load.
To do some real SE.

Probably still OK.

8. I wanted to learn about the techniques of software engineering, ios development and experience Prof. Ben's class. I made the right decision.

9. The lecturer is Prof Ben. Yes I do.

10. I like to challenge myself and I want to improve my programming skills as well. It was definitely the right choice, PSes were fun and I like learning things fast =)

11. It's because I want to push me forward to becoming a capable software engineer.

Yes. It was the right decision. I could have been better executed on my part though.

12. I wanted to learn more than what is offered by most regular courses since they do not have the rigour that cs3217 has. I do not regret taking cs3217 but I think my lifespan has shortened dramatically.

13. To learn iOS, meet great software engineering students and work alongside the best. The hardest part is to get started and this course has definitely help me in overcoming the barrier and spark my interest to self-explore iOS. And I am lucky to have work with some of the best students in my team:)

14. Just for kicks.

15. 1, want to learn more about SE,
2, want to build up some real software,
3, want to learn builind ios app,
4, want to learn more programming,
5, want to make imba friends,
6, want to kill free time

16. I took it because I was interested in writing apps and also, I heard that it is a very fun (and torturous) module to take.

Honestly, I thought of giving up and dropping the module when I was doing ps03 because I spent 5 days on it without any progress. But I decided to drop another module instead so that I can spend more time on CS3217. Thankfully, things are better now! 

So, yep I do not regret taking this module. The people in this class are cool! Nowhere else can I find a class with such dedication to a module.

17. It's never a wrong decision to take a module by Prof. Ben. I took this module to challenge myself.

18. I wanted to strength my software engineering skills and be trained in a tough technical environment.

19. Prof Ben teaches it. Of course.

20. Took the course to level up my programming skills and gain more experience building iOS apps. Yes, I still think it was the right decision, even at the expense of other modules :S

21. I want to do some interesting stuff with proficient people. I think my decision is right.

22. Yes, it was the right decision.
I took this course because I want to learn something useful, practical and interesting.

23. More software engineering exposure. Quite cool to pick-up objective c along the way.
I took the course to improve my software engineering and programming skills. It was definitely the right decision.

24. I took the course because I knew I will learn a lot from it. I had taken Scheme before and I loved it. I always love Prof Ben's courses.

25. To strengthen my software engineering skills. Yes.

26. I chose to take the course because I want to learn a new programming language (Objective C) and practise software engineering skill. Fortunately it was a right decision, even when it is a lot of pain >!<

27. Because I felt I needed to challenge myself so that my potential can be reached.

I ask this quesion to myself everyday. ;)

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3) Essay

Suggest other topics that should have been covered for the lectures (if any).

1. More about code organisation and design.

2. It would be good to cover some of the project management model/technique!

3. Storyboarding is new but I think it would have been good to cover some important points about using it.

4. More warnings and precautions about the potential pit falls could be given.

I do agree on the philosophy of letting (forcing) us to pick up most of the stuffs on our own. But a lot of times, even some high level and very general guide lines are not harmful and could have saved a lot of time.

5. It would be cool if there are more lectures. 

Can spend time explaining the various methods we can use to avoid magic numbers. Objective-c allow us to set properties in the project files. Maybe a good place to store our constants. 

6. more Objective C language and tips lectures

7. More in-depth coverage for MVC pattern.

8. More design patterns?

9. I think that it would also be good if more code examples would be given, especially when teachng the design patterns (like delegate, etc.). This is because these things seem very logical in theory but I personally feel they are a bit more typical in practice (especially while implementing them the first time).

10. Data management

11. Maybe, more about design patterns.

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4) Essay

Suggest other topics that should have been covered for the tutorials (if any).

1. The tutorial may cover more details on SE?

2. Optimization (maybe not suitable)
Black box & white box testing.

3. Concrete examples on software engineering.

4. More technical stuffs e.g. the algo of physics engine

5. Current tutorials are sufficient

6. existing frameworks in IOS

opengles

7. Same as lecture.

8. more about design patterns and ways to decompose a problem.

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5) Essay

Feedback for Lecturer Ben Leong.

1. No other lecturers that I have met in NUS care so much for his students. Reading every single lines of code and challenging his students to do beyond what they think they can achieve. I would be curious to know what makes him so passionate.

2. I find it hard to understand the topics that I don't know before. Not much technical content is taken away from the lecture (except for life lessons). The concepts only get clearer as I struggle with the PS.

This probably has something to do with your talking speed. Please slow down a bit and give us time to digest. Not that we cannot understand what you are saying, but we don't have time to think about what you are saying.

Guest lectures are OK, and even quite good in my opinion, since we are hearing from people who experience it first-hand, and while they are still working on the product.

Tutorial are good because it discusses the pitfalls after we have gone through some practical experience. It is a good time spent.

3. Good job

4. Too handsome

5. The course was very well planned. 

6. Prof Ben never disappoint his students.

7. It's Prof. Prof is awesome.

8. Well, he is awesome as always. I have been scolded by him countless times, but deep down I know that it will do me good and I do hope that he too doesn't think very badly of me. I have never been so frank to any lecturer other than him and I don't think I ever will be. I will miss him a lot and I pray he comes back to teach CS3216. From the next sem, I will miss him a lot. I consider him equal to my father in this home away from home. I consider myself fortunate to have known him.

9. Still a cool lecturer :)

10. Responsible, dedicated and motivated. He identifies 'lobangs' and helps his students by linking them up with external parties for their project. Very thankful for that!

11. It have been a great experience learning from you.

12. Best lecturer in NUS.

13. Concepts are well explained. Instructions are clear.

14. Best lecturer ever. I never absent a single lecture for CS3217.

15. No comment.

16. Prof Ben is really good and motivating. I like his way of informal lectures.

17. Have a really good "common sense".

18. Talk slower.

19. awesome =) What else can i say ^^

20. Engaging and passionate.

21. Great!

22. ok... since no one is perfect. sometimes a bit harsh to students.

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3) Essay

Did you find the feedback write-ups that you received after grading to be useful? If so, why? If not, why?

1. yes it was useful.
it can help me to summary the procedure of doing an assignment, 
and it also provide feedback to teaching staffs about the assignment.

2. Yes, very useful. It's more important for us to learn where we did wrongly than to simply obtain a grade.

3. The feedback that I received was mostly about coding style. So they were useful.

4. Yes, they pointed out a lot of errors that I never noticed.

5. Yeah though haven't had time to read them too closely.

6. Yes. But sometimes it's quite hard to illustrate a point just by comments or write-ups. Maybe a few good example could have been given to learn the good practice, since we have so many good coder among us.

7. The feedback that involves mark deduction are generally clear to understand and useful. However, i think it would be good if the tutors commented more on the codes that aren't directly involved in the grading. Like why do the tutor feel that our codes are good and where can we improve on etc. or which part of the code is hard to read. Any minor suggestion of improvements would be cool too even if its just one small portion of the code. 

8. Yes. I know which part I can improve directly from my code, which is very helpful.

9. yep. good to know where i can do better.

10. Ok but I don't really read the feedback...

11. Yes definitely! I can finally see what are my bad habits.

12. Yes, they showed me where I could improve in terms of the way I code and engineer software.

13. Not really. The structure

14. quite useful

15. In general, the feedback write-ups are useful, but it would be better if the comment/feedbacks provide more information (links/articles) to help students correct their mistakes better.

16. Yes, they were useful. I could understand exactly what I have done wrong and what i need to improve on.

17. Ya, very useful. I liked the fact that I received in-line code comments for first 4 PSes. That was awesomely helpful. In PS 5 though, I was a bit disappointed since comments in grading.txt don't help as much as in-line comments.

18. It makes me know what to improve in the following PS. But I did not have time to discuss with TA in detail ;-( too bad.

19. yup, very =) I can learn the goods as well as the bad and peer learning is also very effective in these cases.

20. Not much

21. I not sure if my code is OK or because my grader is lenient. My mark rarely gets deducted because of coding style.

22. It's somewhat useful but not much. Reading the feedback didn't really help me improve as much as reading the in-code comments.

23. Yes, the feedback is really useful and with reflection, it has helped me in improving the code I write.

24. Definitely. They actually tell me where I'm wrong.

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4) Essay

What are your views on the problem sets in general?

1. challenging..

2. The timing is much better this time.

3. Problem sets are well structured with high learning curves.

4. very good

5. It is really cool, but really time consuming

6. I think they were quite well designed and fun to solve. Especially the last one.

7. Challenging, tedious and time consuming. But fun and rewarding! Forces me to learn on my own which stretched me to my limits.

8. The instruction in the PS is too long-winded.

PS4 is not very useful as a design practice.

9. They are pretty fun and interesting and generally manageable though not advisable to the people who are busy with other stuff xp

10. Very well done. However, I feel that emphasis on testing is still not enough.

11. They're challenging and can provide good learning experience. But personally, I didn't find them very fun and cool to work on. That's why I wasn't very motivated to do the PSes very well.

12. Tough.

13. I love it. But since I'm more of a utility guy, I would wish that the 5 problem sets will help us create a Path app:) That would be cool. Just my personal view.

14. Good and challenging.

15. Challenging. Lots of icing to test of ability to solve problems.

16. They are cool problem sets and is a good software engineering practice.

17. Very well planned. Good amount of information, not too much not too little.

18. They were difficult, but excellent in teaching software engineering and iOS programming.

19. Too much sleep has been lost over these Problem Sets

20. The problem sets are quite interesting in comparison to other software engineering assignment, while provide enough suffer time for student to gain knowledge from the problem sets.

21. problem sets are good

22. I think they are great. Hats off. Learnt a lot.

23. The first problem set is too easy. The gap between 2nd and 3rd is too big.

24. Rather abrupt. Most of the PSes were based on reading stuff up myself or asking around. But I guess that's the aim of it right? Since we needed to learn stuff by ourselves.

25. hmmm. It's hard to say.
I think it's hard to find a balance between letting us learn on our own and spending too much time on unnecessary pit falls.
I you put too many guide lines, it becomes normal tutorials. Yet, less instructions means more struggle, which may or may not indicate good learning experience>.<

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5) Essay

Please let us have your suggestions on how the problem sets can be improved to make learning more efficient.  

1. Compile a self help booklet to collect all the pitfalls from previous students or tutors? So that for more competent student they won't need to look at it. But for those who are struggling, this could be a live saver.

2. Maybe can move some more from PS 3, 4 and 5 to PS1 and 2.

3. PS4 might be changed?

4. Nothing beyond what is already noted in the problem sets.

5. Its cool.

6. Perhaps PS5 should start after finishing grading PS4 so I can have more time fixing my physics engine.

7. Please fix the late penalty marking scheme.
It makes students very very unmotivated for the future pSes and even the project.

8. Maybe get PS4 less problematic.

9. Provide *a little* more guidelines please!

10. Fix some of the typos and errors.

11. Increase the weightage of the testing component.

12. I think PS4 can have other stuff added to it. The appendix was very accurate and there weren't much trouble going through it.

13. Push a few things from PS3 to PS2 to let us get used to programming the interface.

14. If the problem set did not provide assets, the game made by us would more variety since the constraints are less. Also, we would be forced to learn how to get and maintain assets, which will be useful in final project.

15. Same problems as usual from last year. Maybe check if things are alright or the organisation flow is still the same.

16. Even though I think the PSes are not very fun, I really appreciate them. They're the best PSes I've done in NUS.

17. I think PS1 and PS2 can be put together

18. Highlight common pitfalls in problem sets to ensure that students focuses more time on it.

19. none.

20. Instructions can sometimes be a bit ambiguous or have some typos.

21. They are awesome as it is.

22. Maybe a short solution for some parts of the problem sets can be good, maybe it will help reduce the pain in the ultimate problem set 5 where there is the integration of buggy PS3 and buggy PS4 is a real painful time (for me this was because of the design in PS3 and PS4 was not good and the feedbacks for PS4 arrived to late so I have too little time to correct).

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2) Essay

What do you think you have learnt thus far?

1. Software engineering principles and iOS programming.

2. The ability to pick things up on my own. I realise the fastest way for me to learn is by doing it.

3. How to code properly, interact with groupmates, independent learning.

4. I've learnt so much. Time and people management are among some of the stuff that i learnt along the way. I loved the way we learn something new and picking up new stuff on the fly =)
But I guess the most important lessons I've learnt is to teach myself *fast* and to prioritise and plan carefully if you have too many things to  do.

5. Design is important if not the most important part of software engineering.
I am not good at the moment and I need to improve.
Start things earlier if I don't want to stay up the whole night later.

6. I have learned to think more about the structure of the code I am writing and how to write good code.

7. X-Code, Objective-C, github, (a lot of ?) physics, coding standard, MVC
Do not write duplicated code. Torture myself in a happy way.

8. Obj C.
Using open source physics engine.
...

Dealing with depression.

9. I learn not to treat CS3217 like its something completely new. I bit myself when I realised the stuff I do is similar to the thought process I've been using for other projects as well. I threw it all away because I wanted to learn something new or clean out my rubbish processes that I was afraid of having in case it screwed up with my thinking.

10. xcode programming

11. That the human limits can be stretched and challenged greatly, haha. I actually enjoyed the time when I was sleeping at 11am and waking up at 6pm, and work through the night till the next morning. Quite fun.

12. iOS programming
UI programming
Practice SE in project

13. lots about software engineering

14. I've learned how to design good software systems and value testing.

15. I have learnt software engineering skills, especially by getting feedback on my style and design.

16. AF and RI is cool. Software engineering is not easy. It is easy to say we want low coupling and high cohesion, but difficult to achieve in reality. Have to constantly think about what are the repercussion of our coding structures.

17. Basic concepts regarding software engineering, for example, abstraction, mutable/immutable data types. I also learnt software design patterns such as observers and delegates. But it is only through the problem sets that I understood such concepts.

18. - The importance of testing (the pain of not testing before coding)
- Software engineering theory and practice.
- Objective C
- The troublesome provisioning/certificate of Apple.

19. Everything. I have learnt a lot of software engineering and I don't think I need to list that. But apart from that, I learnt this -
1. Patience - Debugging for hours taught me that.
2. Work with 39 degrees Celsius fever - This was horrible. REALLY HORRIBLE. But I have come out stronger.
3. handle frustration - I was really pissed off with the PL1 timings. They didn't have timetable for first half of midterm. Secondly, they schedule practicals till 8pm some days. I used to leave my evening classes, then come and find the lab busy. I think I did suffer because I didn't have a Mac. Travelling to SoC when I had high fever was almost unbearable.

20. Lots of things about software engineering. Lots of practical things =D
Design patterns.
Testing.
Refactoring.
Self-motivated iOS graphics programming.

21. How to create better software, from how to plan better to how to code better.

22. MVC and other design patterns.
How to design and build something that's relatively large.
Do testing.

23. Quite a bit of things but mostly debugging.

24. Life is hard

25. basic ios programming.
software engineering principles.
sleep is optional.

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3) Essay

Please share one thing you love most from this class

1. Learning stuffs all the time.

2. Writing code.

3. The difficulty level! =)

4. Free food

5. The McDonald's!

6. Prof Ben, my team mates, the Facebook group.

7. The rigour of the module

8. It keeps me busy.

9. The people in this class are fun to interact with!

10. high calibre of classmates

11. The environment of crazy ass students.

12. Generally, I like the challenges presented by the problem sets as it helps us to learn stuff.

13. The guest lectures are interesting.

14. I love the fast pace and the rate we pick up new stuff =)

15. The friends in this class are awesome!

16. Can code something that works.

17. The PS5 is the most painful problem set but also most fun.

18. I love the in-line code comments whch tutors give for grading.

19. Watching your own code work (especially for PS04) can sometimes be really rewarding and gratifying. That is the reason why I chose to be an engineer :)

20. Having tutors reading every line of codes.

21. At the end of the problem sets, we actually have a working game to play with.

22. awesome classmates

23. It forced me to learn a lot new things and learn by myself.

24. The guest speakers are a good additional to this module

25. Ben Leong, the best lecturer!!!

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4) Essay

Please share one thing you hate most from this class.

1. The time table is really bad!

2. Too many reports to write...  :(

3. Testing :p

4. Xcode is a horrendous IDE.

5. 3 hours of lecture a bit too much

6. I hate PL 1. I do think that this was unfair to those who don't have a Mac, especially because since I haven't been well this semester for reasons I won't disclose here, I had a very hard time. Please improve this for the next time CS3217 is taught.

7. I write too many bugs.

8. THE F**KING MAC.

9. I was forced to learn a lot things by myself and do have time for other modules.

10. stay up in the night to rush the PSs because I had not planned well.

11. No sleep

12. The tight deadlines. =(

13. tutorial falls on my free day haha

14. Debugging the physics engine because I had no idea what I was implementing and whether they were correct.

15. sleepless nights >"< but finally now I already got used to it :D

16. The knowledge that my grade will not be proportional to the amount of time I spent on the module

17. Sleepless night.

18. work hours.. haha

19. having 1 hour on thur and 2 hour on fri for lectures. Should put everything on one day, 3 hour slot. Perhaps even have the tutorials on the same day.

20. Spending a lot of time doing researching and coding (it's cool but suffering).

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6) Essay

Please give us your comments and suggestions on how to make your learning in CS3217 more efficient and interesting.

1. More content about software engineering. Not the drawing diagrams part. The coding organisation part.

2. BLEH

3. Shorten the PSes and introduce a small project

4. Its good the way it is!

5. Same answer as 21. PL1 ISSUE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

6. We can have a longer tutorial.

7. I would love to have a compiled resource like a booklet, a couple of web site links or blogs to turn for help.

8. It's the most efficient and interesting course in NUS already.

9. cannot think of more.

10. If we can have timely feed back on previous PSes, then it'd be great. For e.g. I got my PS1 feed back close towards the end of PS2 and PS4 feedback close to the end of PS5, though I know tutors also need time to grade, a general feedback will be good first so we know what to look out for in the next PS we do.

Perhaps timing of proposals and pitching can not fall together with PS 5 ><

11. I find that it is not that relevant for us to code such a complicated Physics Engine to learn the implementation of Physics Engines. We spent a lot of time debugging the formulas and stuff.
I think the same outcome can be achieved even if the shapes were changed to circles, which reduces the difficulty of the problem set yet still achieving the learning outcome. 
Regarding the implementation of rectangles, perhaps it can be given as a bonus in ps04? Since many people used an open source physics engine for ps05 anyways.

12. Manage my time more wisely.

13. I know it is quite difficult but it would be good to bring in more guest lecturers.

14. The lectures about Objective C are quite dry (somehow redundant). In my opinion, students can learn about these programming language thing at home. In lecture, it's better to give more examples (demos maybe) to support some hard to understand topic like MVC (I suffered from this topic)...

15. Don't know

16. Provide more information with regards to the problems in Xcode, so less time is wasted on making it work.

17. Teach more technical stuffs related to objective-c.

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7) Essay

Any final words about CS3217? This is your chance to tell us anything you want that is not already covered by the previous questions.

1. Try pair programming

2. At this stage I just hope I pass this module.

3. Great module!

4. CS3217 is really a cool module and I enjoy the process of building stuff with many proficient people.

5. CS3217 is actually a module that stands the greatest chance of encouraging students to pursue entrepreneurship and work on problems that they are passionate about. CS students rocks!

6. for problem 22 choice E
if "every" NUS student take this class, most of them will die.

7.Since I have been told this is not for everyone and not meant to be easy at the very beginning, for a lot of challenges I am not sure whether they are intentional or not. 
Anyway, It is hard to balance between challenge+space to explore and guide lines+easier learning experience.

8. Nah.

9. The tutors are awesome!

10. This module rocks, please continue having this module and torture more students. It will benefit them ultimately haha. This module is also gaining fame for being a challenging, tough yet rewarding module in NUS. Even people from Faculty of Engineering know about this module. Should keep it this way! (:

11. Hope the class can produce more success stories like HuntVille.

12. Maybe can consider using Android platform for future CS3217 modules!

13. Thanks Prof for starting this module for SoC! (:

14. Worth it but much sleep has been lost. Could be more lenient during break periods since students are expected to code during CNY AND midterm break in order to make the deadlines

17. CS3217 is a good module and it should be continued! Hopefully, there will be a lecturer taking over the module when Ben goes on leave.

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