Assignment handed out on Thursday, March 1, 2001

Due in Recitation on 3/1/2001:

• From the paper Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big, read the short section Worse is Better. Be prepared to discuss the following in recitation:

  Scheme is listed as a language that followed the "MIT Approach". As you may or may not know, some companies do use Scheme in commercial applications. An unnamed local robotics company is one. Another example is Ariba's business to business exchange core engine (but don't expect them to admit it!). This seems to debunk Gabriel's argument, or does it? Take a side, and be prepared to support and defend your position. You may extend or modify Garbriel's argument if you wish.

  Due in Recitation Friday, March 2, 2001

• Read The Science of Scientific Writing. Use those guidelines in all writing assignments in the class. You are also encouraged to read what MIT thinks are good examples of 1 pagers from previous students in MIT's systems class.
• Read Lucky's Bozos on the bus. Make a list of the 2-3 points the paper makes, and be prepared to support and defend your choices in recitation.
• Read the Architecture of Complexity. Prepare a 1-page discussion around the following:

  Earlier in the year, you learned how to manage complexity via Abstraction. Simon argues that Hierarchy should be used to manage complexity. Discuss how you would use Abstraction and a Hierarchy in managing complexity. Make sure you cover the pros and cons of your approach. To organize your thoughts, it may be helpful to think about these four approaches: Abstraction only, a Hierarchy only, both, and neither.
  
  If it helps, you may give examples of how you used (or could have used) your approach in the Gnutella Java client you wrote. For this assignment, you may include 1 extra page of (summarized) code or a figure to illustrate your points.

  By March 11, 2001

  • Read The Mythical Man Month. This will be covered in the Quiz, and will also help your team during the Survivor: aD Uni contest