If for some reason you can't pass the checker, you can send in your answer with a screen shot of the passes. At least that's what it says on the site.

I'm not sure how people are getting this to pass though. A lot of people seem to be having trouble with #4/5 but some people are getting it to pass.

I decided to call functions instead of using a while loop so I am depending on a global variable to make this work but with a while loop I wouldn't need one.

In the back of my head I think this might be a reason why it doesn't work. Maybe global variables between multiple submitters is messing it up. I can't even test this theory because I'm almost out of submissions.

The results I get online for #5 make 0% sense, it's not the same as idle. Either idle is bugged or their test runner is bugged. It's annoying me because I spent all this time dealing with BS issues, not learning how to program. I almost want to just abandon the course and then take the OCW version on my own time unofficially.

I had that problem with one of the submissions. I copy/pasted the helper function into the box to make it pass. I'm not sure why the helper function wasn't being called in the tester, but at least the error in that case was helpful.

I really wish they're tester would stop being such a nit. So irritating.

The error I get says it's pulling up a hand that does not exist. It's impossible for a hand to exist when python isn't even running prior to running the test.

If I exit the app and choose 'r', it properly reports back then I need to play a hand first locally but in their tester it pulls up a hand from a previous instance of the python interpreter.

It's not possible to test this locally and I can't even test it online anymore because I'm nearly out of submissions.

I'm using a while loop fwiw.

I came across 2 problems with my code:

1. Using a global was a bad idea.
2. I had a hand.copy() issue when I thought it wasn't a problem.

#2 by itself didn't fix it. #1 was needed too. It submitted on 27/30.

Cool, just finished the set along with the optional questions.

The optional questions were the most important part IMO. It lead me to seeing a pattern that resulted in writing a higher order function (not necessary to do it like this but it sure removed a lot of duplicate code).

Using a global was a bad idea...

fwiw, the MIT flavor of teaching this course is functional-centric. Try to eschew globals, mutation, show deference to functions, etc to keep your hair from falling out.

I have to go finish this PS now.

EDIT TO ADD: Eric Grisham, the professor, taught SICP for many years and hates Python. See the original lectures on youtube for further reference.

I was still able to use recursion without a global. I will check those original lectures at some point.

Am I missing much by not listening to the original lectures? I would prefer not to have to invest a bunch more time on those but will if it's worthwhile.

I installed VMware Player but when I try to open the virtual machine, I get the following message:
"The import failed because C:\Users\Brian\Documents\appliance50-17\appliance50-17.ovf did not pass OVF specification conformance or virtual hardware compliance checks."

So then I tried Virtualbox. I can successfully get the VM up and running on Virtualbox but I get a message that says:
"The Virtual Machine reports that the gues OS does not support mouse pointer integration in the current video mode. You need to capture the mouse (by clicking over the VM display or pressing the host key) in order to use the mouse inside the guest OS."

That sounds fine, but when I click in the VM window, my mouse jumps to the upper left corner of my screen and appears to be phantom clicking. I can manage to do things in the VM so it will work, but it's extremely annoying to have my mouse jumping all over the place. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Ok, it appears that I downloaded the wrong image for VMware Player. And the Virtualbox issue seems to be related to the fact that I have 2 screens. When I move the window to my main screen, it works fine. When I move it to my 2nd screen, I get a jumpy mouse.

I don't know. I haven't watched any of these lectures, but I think the live lectures are in different order. I did watch one of the videos on the orders of growth series and I have to watch the OO stuff when it gets to that. I don't imagine there is a huge difference between one and the other. I will say that Prof. Grisham is more interesting to watch in the original lectures.

I'm kind of surprised they threw "mario" at us in the first cs50x problem set. It wasn't too difficult but I imagine someone with really no programming experience at all would struggle for a while with it unless maybe I'm ******ed?

What are you using to concatenate strings in C? After using Python, C seems so much more complicated.

That's the thing. You have to solve it without string concatenation. I know absolutely no c at all and I guess there has to be a string library which supports it but we definitely shouldn't be using it.

That's why I was surprised at this problem. It took a very algorithmic way of thinking to solve it. I wrote it with concatenation in Python afterwards and the solution was so much different.

If you end up getting stuck on Mario you might want to do the 2nd problem first. It was much easier to solve and has no relation to Mario.

Ah got it. I had just assumed we needed to concatenate strings. Once I thought about how to do it without that, I got it.

It's funny you say that. I find Prof Grisham way more interesting than any teacher I've seen in an online course so far. I'm currently taking Interactive Python on coursera and took Stanford's introduction to DBs and the professors have been really boring.

As a whole I think this Edx class is doing things right. They have the text of the lecture on the side as well as a textbook. Compare that to the DB class where the only supplement to the lectures are PDFs of the lecture slides before they're run so they're actually missing a bunch of information or to interactive python where the professors seem to ramble quite a bit and there is no supplement to the lectures.

I find Professor Grisham on edx to be lacking in the lectures compared to the professor for cs50x. It feels like Professor Grisham is just reading a book out loud. It's like 95% book material and 5% insight.

So far the sorting lectures have been the hardest to fully get and his explanations don't really help. It's like reading a technical book out loud.

Can I get a link to the original lectures?

I'm really doing my best to not watch any of the lectures or do any of the finger exercises. I don't want to go through the entire class again, but now I'm interested in how it is conceivably possible to make sorting difficult to understand. Didn't they use the hands of cards illustration?

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrica...ing-fall-2008/

or...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6U-i...1DCD2E34B8E270

He just used a list of numbers, then showed the code, then spent like 30 seconds writing what the code did with a pen and moved onto the next sort algorithm. There were like 4 different algorithms.

Is that the Rice Python class? The lecturers are an odd bunch indeed. Dude with the tie has a strange grin and sounds strange and makes odd "jokes". The programming tips guy is extremly annoying for some reason. Warren is the least odd of the three.

The best class I've taken so far has been the edx AI one. The lectures are pretty cool, the use of pacman is great, the robot comics are a nice touch, the homework questions are often interesting/challanging and the assignments are cool.

I also really enjoyed the "Model Thinking" one iirc it was on coursera..bald dude with glasses. He had an interesting style imo

David Malan is my favorite professor of any online class I've ever taken. His enthusiasm for programming is extremely infectious.

PS 5 for 6.00x has been fun so far.

The erician recursion problem is proving to be pretty difficult.