Exercises for Chapter 7, 13
CS-332, IS-333
Victor Norman
Chapter 7: Exercise 1
You are 1 of 2 individuals in a room, and you decide to
communicate with each other. You have basic non-high-tech
supplies with you: paper, pencils, pvc pipes, string, tongue
depressors, flashlights, duct tape, etc...
What ways can you think of for how you could communicate?
List as many as you can think of.
Now, analyze those communication methods. What
properties does each have? (consider how they differ in
functionality). What advantages and disadvantages does each
have? How fast is each communication method? How
reliable is it?
Chapter 7: Exercise 2
Suppose 3 more people join you in the room.
How does your choice of communication
method change?
Suppose 100 more people join you in the room.
Which communication methods work now?
Chapter 7: Exercise 3
Suppose you have no supplies in the room and
so you must communicate by speaking. How
many can speak at once? What affects how
many can speak at once?
Chapter 7: Exercise 4
Suppose you decide only one person is allowed
to speak at once. Come up with rules to
determine how you as a community decide who
gets to speak.
Chapter 13: Exercise 1
What if one person really one wants to talk to
only one other person -- and no one else must
be able to hear what is being said? How would
you implement this in a room full of people?
Can you do it with speaking?
Chapter 13: Exercise 2
Suppose you decide that people who want to
speak to each other must do so through a
tube/pipe? How does this compare to just
talking out loud in the room? What advantages
or disadvantages does this have? Is it more or
less efficient? Is it more or less scalable?
Robust? Reliable?
Chapter 13: Exercise 3
Suppose you have a group of people in one
room communicating with each other, and a
group in another room communicating, and a
single tube through a hole in the wall between
the rooms. How are you going to share this
tube? Come up with some schemes on how it
could be shared. Compare the schemes.
Summarize
As a group, summarize what you think are the
important things we learned today.