TDDD25 mid-term evaluation 2024

The course has been mid-term-evaluated by the muddy card method on 14/2/2024 during the 8th lecture.
8 students attended the lecture, and I received 8 cards.
I summarize in the following the main issues and comment where appropriate.

Overall, the course seems to run very well. 4 cards had no dislike at all, and on the others, criticism is not of a serious kind.

Lectures:
Lectures are, on most cards, appreciated, and are characterized as interesting, well-structured, clear and thorough.
2 cards encourage asking questions more frequently. 1 card explicitly appreciated the occasional whiteboard usage.
The slides are generally appreciated. One card found that the rule-based formulation of distributed algorithms is hard to follow. 2 cards mention that some slides contain much text.
- Comment: The rule-based formulation of distributed algorithms ("if the server receives this type of message, it does that") is commonly used in the literature and matches the structure of event-based programming, which is a natural programming style for distributed realtime systems.
Regarding heavy slides: I try to reduce these, but sometimes it simply feels more natural to keep things together on a single slide. In these cases, I usually use animations to display contents step by step. Note also that, as the book is recommended but not mandatory to buy, the slides also shall serve as a kind of textbook/reference and thus aim at being very clear, complete and self-explaining (where possible), which sometimes involves more text.

Labs:
The labs are generally appreciated on many cards (well structured, fun, well connected with the lectures, right level of difficulty).
One card remarks that the lab workload is high and that good Python skills are required. The provided tests are considered helpful.
Several cards explicitly appreciate the good lab assistance (and lab assistant). One card commented on unequally distributed lab schedule.
- Comment: Note that TDDD25 is an advanced-level course; by now you should be able to use Python reasonably well. Please let us know if there are any specific required advanced Python skills that should be announced more prominently in the course information.
Please note also that the overall lab work time in the course is not limited to the scheduled lab time; some preparatory work is expected to be done off-line, too.
The perceived gap in the lab sessions might be due to some recent reschedulings that became necessary as both the lab assistant and myself were on travel last week.

Thanks for all comments and suggestions!

Christoph Kessler, course leader TDDD25

Page responsible: Christoph Kessler
Last updated: 2024-02-15