The Academic Honor Policy (see Brightspace) is applicable to all work you do in CS 3270/5270.

CS 3270: Programming Languages

Project 4

Goal

Gain experience in quickly learning a new programming language.

GitHub notes

Please see GitHub notes for more information on cloning, committing, and pushing repositories.

Dates

Date	Description
Friday (11/18)	Notification of language choice and if working individually or as a team by completing Google form
Thursday (12/08)	Due date (no late submissions accepted)

Assignment

Create a Sudoku solver in a language that is new to you.

At this point in the class, you have programmed a Sudoku solver in C++, Racket, and Prolog. You are now to write a Sudoku solver in a language that is new to you. The languages you may choose from are:

• Ada
• Elixir
• Erlang
• Fortran
• Go
• Haskell
• Lua
• OCaml*
• Rust
• Scala**

* Perferred OS is MacOS (hard to install on Windows)

** Using Java packages prohibited

Your solver should either ask the user for the name of a text file or hard-code the text file name in the source code. Make sure you specify in your instructions how to use your program (i.e., will be prompted for the file name or file name stored as variable). If the file name is stored as a variable, make sure it is easy to update.

Note that the previous projects imported a puzzle in two different ways. In the Project 1 (C++), the contents of the text file were read one token at a time and stored in some data structure. In Projects 2 (Racket) and 3 (Prolog), the text file contained the actual code for the data structure in textual form (i.e., a list of lists) and built-in functions were utilized to import the textual version of the list of lists into the program. You may implement the reading of the text files either way.

Like the Sudoku solvers from previous projects, your program should print the initial board then the solved board or a "no solution" message if the board can't be solved.

You do not need to incorporate GitHub Actions (i.e., continuous integration) in your project.

Language selection and working individual or as a team

If you want, you may work on teams of up to three students for this project. The team members can be from different sections. Regardless if you are working individually or as a team, you must complete the Google form by Friday (11/18) with information on which language you have chosen for this project, and who you will be working with if you are working on a team. For a team, only one member of the team is required to complete the form (i.e., only one submission per team). Failure to complete the form by the deadline will incur a late penalty. After you complete the form, a repository will be generated for you. Note that the generation of the repository is not an automatic process. When the repository is ready, you will receive an email with the URL for the repository.

Project submission

For submission, the individual or team repository for Project 4 on GitHub should contain the following files:

• All source code. Make sure to add block comments to the top of all source files and include an academic honesty statement.
• Two text files containing test puzzles, one that is solvable and one that isn't.
• An image file (GIF, JPG, or PNG) showing a screen shot of your program solving a puzzle.
• Update the project4.md file and add the information below.
  • Names of team members.
  • Instructions on how to access an appropriate compiler/interpreter for your solver. Please include a URL and any special installation instructions. You may include installation instructions based on the operating system that you used for the project.
  • Instructions on how to use your solver. Please include, as appropriate, instructions on compiling, linking, and running your solver.
  • A link to a video presentation that will be similar to Homework 1 with some additional requirements (see section titled Video presentation).

Markdown markup language

The project4.md file is a Markdown file, which allows you to use simple syntax to format the text in the file. You can open and edit project4.md in your favorite text editor. You are not required to beautify your text in this file, but at the very least, place a header before each of the items listed above. For example, add a header using two or three # before the header text:

## Names of team members

Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, and Mark Zuckerberg

Please include the screen shot of your program solving a puzzle in project4.md. Use the [text](file name) markup code to include an image. The resolution of the image should be good enough to be able to read the output of the program. The following example markup code will display the image file named example-screen-shot.png that is located in the images folder in this repository.

[Screen shot of program solving a puzzle](images/example-screen-shot.png)

Video presentation

Provide a longer video compared to Homework 1 (mininum length five minutes and maximum length six minutes). For the programming language that you chose for Project 4, talk about the topics seen throughout the semester (not an exhaustive list): history, compiled or interpreted, imperative or functional or both, bindings (static or dynamic), bindings (type, scope, storage), available types, memory management, expressions, statements, control statements, parameter passing modes.

Related to Project 4, talk about what language feature that you found interesting or helpful as you implemented Sudoku in the language. Also, talk about what you found the language to be lacking of, an aspect of the language that was hard to understand, or a disadvantage that you perceived of the language.

Viewing actual code is okay if it deemed useful to describe the language. The presentation may also include a quick demonstration of the solver (though that is not required).

Pick you favorite video recorder (e.g., you can record using Zoom), then upload the video file to your favorite cloud storage server and then provide URL to the video in the project4.md file.

Participation form for team projects

Important: For those who are on a team, each team member must complete the Google form by the project due date on Thursday (12/08) discussing how much each team member contributed to the project. A team member who does not complete this form by the deadline will be deducted 6% from that team member's score. Those working individually do not need to complete the form.

Your submission to the form stating your personal opinion will not be shared with other team members. You should state a percentage of contribution by each team member (should total 100%) and you should provide additional commentary describing each team member's contribution to the overall effort. Optionally, you can provide information on any special circumstances you want me to be aware of. Note that we will not look at how active each team member is on the GitHub repository (e.g., committing code). Team participation will be based on the form above.

Style guidelines

• Structure: You should not place the entire solution in one function/method. Make sure you modularize your code (i.e., place code for sub-tasks in different functions/methods).

• Line lengths: No lines should exceed 100 columns.

• Indentation: Use proper and consistent indentation.

• Whitespace: Functions/methods should be separated by at least one empty line.

• Comments: Use Javadoc-style comments to document all functions/methods. For your reference, below is an example of Javadoc-style comments for a method.

  /**
  * Returns an Image object that can then be painted on the screen.
  *
  * @param  url  An absolute URL giving the base location of the image.
  * @param  name The location of the image, relative to the url argument.
  * @return      The image at the specified URL.
  */
  

Grading

• For teams, each team member will receive the same grade unless a team member did not contribute much to the final project (in which case their score may be reduced by 10%).

• If you are encountering difficulties implementing the reading of the puzzles from a file, you may forgo this feature and instead store the puzzle in an array (or similar structure). However, your score will be reduced by 6%.

• If you are encountering difficulties and need to change the language that you initially chose, you must contact the instructor about the change. Note that your score will be reduced by 6%.

Graduate students

You are required to select a second language and create a Sudoku solver with that language, too. For the second language, you are not allowed to join a team. That is, for one of your languages you can join a team, but for the other you must work individually. Of course, you may work on both individually, too. Please email your second language selection directly to the instructor. The due date for this second language is the same as the due date of the first language, which is on Thursday (12/08).

Academic honesty

As with the previous projects, there are many solutions to Sudoku in many different programming languages available on the Internet. Do not look at the code you may find there. Using code that you find on the Internet is unethical, and of course you would miss the learning opportunity that you get by developing this yourself. This instructor will report any violations to the university's Honor Council.

Final notes

• Ensure that your name, VUnetID, email address, and the honor code statement appear in the header comments of your source files.

• CS 3270 TAs are not expected to know the languages in Project 4, so they are not obligated to provide assistance.