There was one networks class I took where the assignment was to implement a simple network protocol to do file transfers over a serial port. Computers in the lab were paired up and had their serial ports connected to one another. People were assigned to computers and given either the receiver or transmitter to implement.
I was about done implementing the first draft of my side and asked the other side how it was going so we could test some actual communication. The response I got was "it's about done, we just need to split it up into functions". I was initially shocked and then naively impressed that someone could actually reason about the problem without breaking it down.
The end result was of course that I just had to give up and implement both sides of the communication. This was eventually a much better learning experience. I ended up abstracting out the serial port and allowing the two sides to communicate through a unix pipe with random bit errors introduced in packets to test the recovery. I could then run much longer testing without depending on the lab or someone else. I think I eventually tested it enough that I was up against the fundamental problem that the cheap checksum we were using let errors pass way too easily.
That exact same thing happened to me, except that I was using a smaller error rate, and a Hamming(7,4) code for error correction.
After the ordeal was over, I looked at the code that the other guys had been writing. They hadn't started on the error detection and correction -- I'd heard much wailing and gnashing of teeth earlier about how mathematical it was -- and their code (all in one big main function, with no indentation) wouldn't compile. I watched as they spent about an hour randomly permuting it, to no avail.
I'm not sneering at these guys. I'm baffled by them.
I was about done implementing the first draft of my side and asked the other side how it was going so we could test some actual communication. The response I got was "it's about done, we just need to split it up into functions". I was initially shocked and then naively impressed that someone could actually reason about the problem without breaking it down.
The end result was of course that I just had to give up and implement both sides of the communication. This was eventually a much better learning experience. I ended up abstracting out the serial port and allowing the two sides to communicate through a unix pipe with random bit errors introduced in packets to test the recovery. I could then run much longer testing without depending on the lab or someone else. I think I eventually tested it enough that I was up against the fundamental problem that the cheap checksum we were using let errors pass way too easily.