I love that I can search for messages in GMail based not only on the text in the message, but also on text in any attachments.  This isn’t a new feature, it’s just one of GMail’s original features that I happen to like.

However, this means that virtually every search I perform returns at least one message: the message a student in CS-100 sent me exactly four years ago today.

This particular CS-100 class wrote a program to search for Scrabble words.  Users would enter their available letters and the program would list all possible words spelled with those letters.  Done correctly, it took only about 20 lines of code using the C++ Standard Template Library, which was the focus of the assignment.

This particular CS-100 student submitted her work to me early (before the online dropbox opened), so her homework is attached to the e-mail message.  This includes one C++ source file, and one file called dictionary.txt

Ay, there’s the rub.  For in that file of text, what words may come when we have search-ed through this mortal mail must yield results.  There’s the source that makes a match of unrelated text.

Did she write about “serious software error?”  You bet!  Her message contained the words serious, software, and error.  Did she right about “Registration Manager?”  Yep!  How about “Emergency Alert committee meeting?”  Absolutely, she did!

So, Ms. Student, you have become the one student I am least likely to forget from five years as a teaching assistant, if for no other reason than because you have written to me about every possible topic in the universe.  Congratulations!