>Should HW3, or our final project for that matter, demonstrate results with visuals/sound such as applets and/or GUI's. In HW3 this could "draw" the tree for >example.
HW3 should not demonstrate any applets or GUI's. All output should be purely text-based. (If you want to spent x more hourse on HW3 just to write a nice GUI -- that's fine, but I won't give any credit for it.) For the project I advise everyone (in my section at least) not to spend any time/much time/too much time (choose your pick) on fancy interfaces. When grading the projects I will first of all see if the programs works as intended, and then try to weigh the complexity of the data structures and algorithms. Of course, clear output will also carry some weight, but clear text-based output is just as good as a GUI (as far as I'm concerned). Last semester someone made a really cool purely text-based, working (and as good as unbeatable) scrabble program. Two students in my section also had scrabble programs and just didn't manage to pull it off (even though they had Aced there hws) because they got stranded in the GUI's. _Unless_ you already have a GUI that just needs a bit of touching up, or unless you have already written a lot of GUI's, I advise everyone to stay away from it: it's simply too time-consuming. Hans