7 Getting Help

• For information on the IRC protocol, read the revised RFC. RFCs are written in a style that you may find unfamiliar. However, it is wise for you to become familiar with it, as it is similar to the styles of many standards organizations. We don't expect you to read every page of the RFC, but you may well need to re-read critical sections a few times for the meaning to sink in.

• For information on socket programming, the following may be helpful:
  • BSD Sockets: A Quick And Dirty Primer
  • An Introductory 4.4BSD Interprocess Communication Tutorial
  • Unix Socket FAQ
  • man pages
    • installed locally (e.g. man socket)
    • available online: the Single Unix Specification
  • select tutorial

• Talk to your classmates. While you need to write your own original program, we expect conversation with other people facing the same challenges to be very useful.

• Post to the main class bulletin board (academic.cs.15-441) if appropriate. This is probably best for detailed questions the answers to which could help many other students. Questions of the form ``I do not understand this project.'' are not likely to get you much help.

• For clarifications on this assignment, post to the main class bulletin board (academic.cs.15-441). But do not expect an immediate reply, especially at odd hours.

• Read the class bulletin boards. This is really very important.

• Come to office hours.