Extra Credit

Finding Errors

You can get up to 2 points of extra credit for finding errors in the course–this includes typos, broken links, etc. The first time you’ll get 1 point, the second time 1/2 point, the third 1/4 point, etc. We prefer pull requests when possible.

Project

You’ll get a point of extra credit for each of the project phases (besides the first one) that you generalize to N dimensions (1 through 8 must work, beyond that is optional). This means that any input file in the example input and output files should be taken by your program and result in an output file that matches the reference, rather than only the *2d* ones. Performance must still adhere to the standards of each project, so you’ll probably need template metaprogramming to avoid needing to create indices dynamically. Here’s an outline of how that might look:

// A for_each-style function that allows the loop index to be used as a template parameter for the supplied function
// To run F<1>(), then F<2>(), then F<3>(), use constexpr_for<1, 3>(F)
template <size_t First, size_t Last>
constexpr void constexpr_for(auto F) {
    if constexpr (First <= Last) {
        F.template operator()<First>();
        constexpr_for<First+1, Last>(F);
    }
}

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    // "Parse" and get dimension of input wave orthotope
    auto infile = argv[1], outfile = argv[2];
    const size_t dims = /* READ FIRST size_t FROM INFILE */;
    // Read infile, solve, and write outfile
    constexpr_for<1, 8>([dims, infile, outfile]<size_t N>{
        if (dims != N) return;
        auto w = WaveOrthotope<N>(infile);
        w.solve();
        w.write(outfile);
    });
    return 0;
}

If this looks like gibberish to you, it’s unlikely that the extra credit will be worth the effort.

Given the heavy templating that will probably be involved, I would recommend testing with up to three or four dimensions while developing, and only compiling for up to 8 dimensions when you’re almost sure you’re done–compilation will likely take a lot of time and memory with that many dimensions.

Custom

If you have an idea to improve the course (e.g. elucidating example code, a few extra paragraphs for clarity, an assignment that yields the same learning for less effort) and would like extra credit, let us know and we can probably arrange something.