CS 5500 Assignment #2.
Assigned: Wednesday, 14 September 2016
Due: Wednesday, 21 September 2016

The goals of this assignment are (1) to give you practice
looking at technical specifications and source code with
a critical and discerning eye, (2) to give you practice
writing the kind of constructive criticism you would be
expected to offer as part of a technical review, (3) to
give you a bit more practice navigating source code at a
GitHub site, and (4) to give the instructors a chance to
see how you think about specifications and software, which
may influence future lectures and assignments.

For this assignment, you must read the specification given
by SRFI 135: Immutable Texts.  (A link to SRFI 135 appears
within the "Resources" section of the online materials for
weeks 1 and 2.)  You don't need to memorize that spec, and
you don't even need to understand all of it, but you should
understand its rationale, basic concepts, relationship to
Unicode, and its core operations.

After reading the specification document for SRFI 135, you
must read the source code for its sample implementations.
You don't need to understand all of that source code, but
you should understand it well enough to contribute to the
discussion of those implementations in a technical review.

Instead of providing oral comments, however, you will write
a technical memo that includes constructive criticism of
both the specification and its sample implementations.
Your memo should demonstrate your understanding of SRFI 135
by answering questions such as

    What's good about the specification?
    What's good about the sample implementations?
    How could the specification be improved?
    How could the sample implementations be improved?

Be specific.  Give reasons.  Give examples.  If you think
something could have been done better, explain how it could
be done better.

Your technical memo should begin with a header that identifies
you and the subject of your memo.  The body of your memo should
contain at least one section devoted to the specification and
at least one other section devoted to sample implementations.
Your memo may also include other sections if you believe they
would contribute to your memo.

Your memo does not have to be long, but it should demonstrate
an appropriate understanding of the specification and sample
implementations.

Well-written criticism that makes good points will earn full
credit.  Poorly written criticism that doesn't really have
anything to say will earn less credit.  Mistakes in spelling,
punctuation, and grammar may also reduce your grade for this
assignment.

You will submit your memo in printed form, on paper, at the
beginning of class on the day this assignment is due.

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