Basics

The CSE undergraduate labs are open to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can use the ACS Account Lookup Tool to get the lab door codes for irregular hours. While you can feel free to use any room, any room with Dell machines (which you should boot into Linux) will allow you to login directly to your CSE8A environment (served from ieng6.ucsd.edu).

CSE B260 will additionally have tutors which are shared among the 8A and 8B classes (in winter) available during the hours listed here (note that these hours may change during the quarter, visit often to see the latest tutor hours). Tutors for the CSE11 class may also be able to answer your questions, but will not be able to answer specific questions about homework.

Tutor hours are here.

Why go to Open Lab?

Can't I just do my homework at home or by logging in from home? Yes. You can install Dr. Java and the required classes/software for this class on a windows or mac machine. Instructions are on the main course page at the bottom. However, a main goal of 8B is to become proficient in the Linux operating system. As such, we recommend working directly on ieng6.ucsd.edu.

You may use a program like PuTTY to remotely log in to ieng6.ucsd.edu and be in the same programming environment as you can find in the lab. We don't recommend that you do your homeworks on your own installation of Java on a different machine (say, your home machine) because we REQUIRE that your code compile and run on ieng6. Different machines can behave differently, and since we don't have access to whatever machine you have to test and run your program, we have to require that it work correctly on ieng6 the machine dedicated for this class.

BUT, we STRONGLY recommend that you do most of your work in the lab. Our tutoring staff will be in lab many hours to assist you in learning the "practice" of programming. Use their time and skills wisely. See the notes below on "How to talk to a tutor".

How to login to UCSD lab computers (e.g. CSE Basement lab machines)

You will use your CSE8 specific login to log into Linux in the CSE basement lab. This is the same cs8w login you had in CSE8A. It is NOT your UCSD login (the one that looks like your email name). If you need help with that login, please see the ACS (Academic Computing Services) Department. ACS has a web site where you can look at ALL accounts and passwords you have on any UCSD system, so if you forget you can look it up. Use the Account Lookup Tool.

When you login, you will see a windowing environment that is NOT Windows, but has a similar interface. Most people just play around with it to figure out how it differs from Windows. If you want, this user manual has all the detail you could want.

You will have Firefox installed as a web browser. You will have Dr. Java installed. You will also have 2 common programming editors installed -- emacs and vim. We recommend that you get to know how to use at least one of them.

You'll also be able to access the "folder" that used to be "Class Resources". You can get to it with a GUI folder. But we also require that you be able to access and manipulate your files and directories using a command line interface. Follow the directions on the Unix Lab in Week 1 (this is a lab you will complete on your own).

This is your personal storage that you will have access to this term -- where you should store all your CSE8B work. You get much more space here than you have on your regular UCSD windows account. The "home" folder, is where you will put all your work. The "public" folder is a folder you can copy things from that you will need for this course.

How to talk to a tutor

You can get the most help, the most quickly from a tutor by observing a few guidelines before asking for help. The primary objective is to think like an engineering professional. If someone was coming to ask you for help, what would you want them to present to you and what would you have expected them to have tried? This may be a hard question to answer the first few weeks of class, but should become easier shortly.

Some suggestions:

• Provide a printout of your code, or have the code open in an editing window for the tutor to see. Programs are detailed beasts, likely we'll have to look at the specifics of your program in order to best help you.
• Be able to state clearly and exactly the problem you are having. This may mean you want to write down on a piece of paper EXACTLY the error message you are getting (including what line it is on). Particularly, do you have:
  • A general windows question (how to use an editor, copy a file, etc).
  • An error compiling your program? (things that show up in your "Compiler Output" window in Dr. Java). Here we need to know the EXACT text of the FIRST error message, including what "line" in the source code the compiler is unhappy with.
  • A runtime error. This is an error produced by Java when you attempt to run your program with some specific input. We need to know the EXACT text again and also the input you gave the program that produced the error.
  • A logic error. This occurs when your program both compiles and runs without errors, but does not give the result that you expected. Here, we need to know what output you expected, why, and what output you are currently getting.

Tutors do expect you to have worked on your problem before you talk to them. They expect you to have read thoroughly the homework problem statement (though you can ask them questions about it) and to be able to discuss what you think your program is doing -- or to have specific questions for them about how a programming construct works.

Life as a computing professional involves facing new problems and using a scientific method to work towards a solution in a logical manner. Tutors appreciate efforts in that vein, and will be better able to help those students who can communicate with them in this way. Nonetheless, tutors are there to help provide you with some of the background knowledge they have learned, to make your acquisition of these problem solving skills less painful.