Fwd: URGENT: Use of generate statements in p4

[Shawn Blanton]

Hello

What do you all think about this dissertation written by Eric.... ;)

It is not everyday one gets to read the word "stricken"...

SB

Begin forwarded message:

From: ericbr...@cmu.edu
Date: April 30, 2013, 6:11:51 AM PDT
To: "Ronald Blanton" <rbla...@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: URGENT: Use of generate statements in p4

Hi Professor Blanton,

This morning (Tuesday April 30th) I received an email from Matthew Beckler
stating that generate statements will not be allowed in Project 4.  I
believe it is EXTREMELY unfair to introduce this requirement at this time.
The reason is that some students, myself included, have already completed
Project 4 according to the initially published specifications.  I allotted
time to complete the project last week and did so as planned.  I have
allocated the time this week to working on the final homework for this
course, as well as projects and homeworks in other courses.  Modifying my
code to not use generate statements would require extensive changes and
would require me to modify my diagrams as well as essentially rewrite my
report.  I would also have to regenerate all my area and timing reports.
As can easily be seen, this would essentially require me to rewrite my
entire part B portion of Project 4.  Further, Matthew mentions one of the
two reasons why he chose at this late time to require us not to use
generate statements is so we can more easily debug our code and have the
requisite compiler support.  My code is already debugged and already
compiles with both DC and Modelsim.  If I were to rewrite my code to
comply with the new requirement, I would have to debug that new code, so
there would be more debugging and not less.

Please consider what would happen if you keep this new requirement in
effect.  What will happen if I do not have time to update my design to
comply with the new requirement?  Will you give me a poor grade just
because I did not comply with a requirement that was not in effect when I
completed the project?  What if I do in fact comply with your new
requirement?  Then I won't have time to work on the last homework in this
class which could affect my performance on the final as well as my
homework average.  (An argument that it would be dropped doesn't hold
water because then I don't have the chance to have a different homework to
be dropped and I can't get the experience with the material for the final
that the homework would provide.)

I feel VERY, VERY strongly that this new requirement should be stricken
down.  I hope you will agree.  If not, I will feel compelled to discuss
this with the University Administration as I think it is extremely unfair
since now students that procrastinated on the project can easily comply
with the new project requirements the first time they implement part B but
I would be forced to implement part B another time to comply, making me do
worse on subsequent coursework such as the last homework and possibly the
final.

Thanks for your attention to this important matter,
Eric Brunstad

[Qiuling Zhu]

Many other students are also complaining about the same thing before today's class.

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[Shawn Blanton]

ok...thanks....I will take care of this...if you are asked about this change again, just say that Professor Blanton knows about your concerns. 

SB

[Shawn Blanton]

18340 staff -- just want you to know that I responded to Eric's email.

Without going in detail, I felt it appropriate to forward his email to Dean's office of both CIT and CS. This is just an FYI so you that you know it was taken care of and that you don't  need to respond in anyway to the students on this matter.

I will post the following on blackboard:

It appears this change to the project has a greater negative impact than the positive impact that we had anticipated. As a result, the restricted use of the 'generate' command has been eliminated.

SB