With the increasing popularity of advanced language models and other artificial intelligence technologies, solutions that utilize AI are now widely used in various industries, such as software engineering and education. This article specifically examines the utilization of AI-assisted tools in programming courses at universities. It presents the existing tools available and discusses their practical applications, based on insights from a pilot project. Additionally, the article delves into the perspectives and attitudes of both students and teachers towards these tools.

Accurate, reliable timestamping which is also convenient and inexpensive is needed in many important areas including real-time network applications and network measurement.Recently the TSC register, which counts CPU cycles in popular PC architectures, was proposed as the basis of a new software clock which in terms of rate performance performs as well as more expensive GPS alternatives.Smooth and precise clock rate is essential to measure time differences accurately.We show how to define a TSC based clock which is also accurate with respect to absolute time.The clock is calibrated by processing, in a novel way, timestamps contained in the usual flow of Network Time Protocol (NTP) packets between a NTP server and the existing software clock, and TSC timestamps made independently on the host side.Using real measurements over 4 months, validated with a GPS synchronized hardware timing solution, the algorithm measured absolute time with a median error of only 30 microseconds when using a nearby stratum-1 NTP server.Results for two other servers are given.We also provide new algorithms for the robust determination of clock rate.We exploit the reliability of the available hardware to design synchronization algorithms which are inherently robust to many factors including packet loss, server outages, route changes, temperature environment, and network congestion.

A significant proportion of link bandwidth measurement methods are based on IP's ability to control the number of hops a packet can traverse along a route via the time-to-live (TTL) field of the IP header. A new delay variation based path model is introduced and used to analyse the fundamental networking effects underlying these methods. Insight from the model allows new link estimation methods to be derived and analysed. A new method family based on packet quartets: a combination of two packet pairs each comprising a probe following a pacesetter packet, where the TTL of the pacesetter is limited and the end-to-end delay variation of the probes is measured, is introduced. The methods provide 'pathchar-like' rate estimates over multiple links without relying on the delivery of ICMP messages, with reduced invasiveness and other advantages. The methods are demonstrated using simulations, and measurements on two different network routes are used for illustration and comparison against available tools (pathchar and clink). A comprehensive analysis of practical issues affecting the accuracy of the methods, such as link layer headers, is provided. Particular attention is paid to the consequences of 'invisible' hops: nodes where the TTL is not decreased.

A highly accurate monitoring solution for active network measurement is provided without the need for GPS, based on an alternative software clock for PC’s runningUnix. With respect to clock rate, it’s performance exceeds common GPS and NTP synchronized software clock accuracy. It is based on the TSC register counting CPU cycles and offers a resolution of around 1ns, a rate stability of 0.1PPM equal to that of the underlying hardware, and a processing overhead well under 1µs per timestamp. It is scalable and can be run in parallel with the usual clock. It is argued that accurate rate, and not synchronised offset, is the key requirement of a clock for network measurement. The clock requires an accurate estimation of the CPU cycle period. Two calibration methods which do not require a reference clock at the calibration point are given. To the TSC clock we add timestamping optimisations to create two high accuracy monitors, one based on Linux and the other on Real-Time Linux. The TSC-RT-Linux monitor has offset fluctuations of the order of 1µs. The clock is ideally suited for high precision active measurement.