Writing an RFC

Due date

Check the course schedule for the due date.

Introduction

In this assignment you will be creating a complete BLAST RFC. Since you have already implemented BLAST, you should have some idea of all the issues that were not specified well or even specified.

Acknowledgments

This lab is based on the BLAST protocol as defined by Peterson & Davie. It was written by Mike Erlinger at Harvey Mudd College.

Goals

To write an RFC.
To think about careful specification of a protocol, and the details that may be left out of a less formal description.

Logistics

Students should group up to complete this assignment. Write up your work in ALL lab notebooks. You may discuss the material with whomever you wish. You may obtain help from anyone you wish, but you should clearly document that help.

You have one week to complete this assignment.

Preparation

To prepare for this assignment, review section 4.3.1 (pp. 408 - 413) in Peterson & Davie, 3rd edition, on the BLAST bulk transfer protocol. You should have this from when I handed it out before lab 10. You may also want to review the code you wrote.

You may complete this assignment on any HMC CS or MathLAN workstation. See below for further implemenation instructions.

Assignment

Task 1 - Writing an RFC

This is to be complete RFC.

Use the tools found at http://xml.resource.org/ to convert your RFC from XML to text or HTML.
Include all the standard boiler plate. See http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc-editor/instructions2authors.txt (the draft revision of RFC 2223).
Use appropriate style. See http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc-style-guide/rfc-style-manual-08.txt
Look at the various features that BLAST provides and include a description of those features in your writeup.
Include in the RFC a set of tests to evaluate two BLAST implementations, e.g., testing a sender and a receiver that have been created by different implementers.

Task 2 - Reviewing Labs

Write up a detailed review of one of the labs 0-4. Your review should include proofreading the assignment, reviewing the technical instructions, and analyzing what you learned from the lab.
Write up a detailed review of one of the labs 5-9.
Write up a detailed review of one of the labs 10-13.

Assessment

To earn a B, complete Task 1.
To earn an A, also complete Task 2.

Lab Notebook

Put your RFC text and XML into (onto?) your twiki page.

Put your lab reviews on your twiki page.

Janet Davis (davisjan@cs.grinnell.edu)

Created April 30, 2009
Last revised April 30, 2009