Fw: [Year 12 Its] Programming for small devices

[Kevork Krozian]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Mills" <djmills at netspace.net.au>
To: <is at edulists.com.au>
Cc: "Kevork Krozian" <kevork at edulists.com.au>
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 3:18 AM
Subject: Re: [Year 12 Its] Programming for small devices


> Kevork,
>
> I taught my year 11s this year using MySQL and NetBeans.  That should give 
> you
> all the same advantages as MySQL and PHP.  Like you say - just let MySQL
> handle all the concurrency issues.
>
> No I don't think that for someone just spending weeks on learning 
> programming
> (rather than years at Uni) that a "networked information system" sounds at
> all easy.
>
> You could simplify it enormously and still sit within the guidelines by
> restricting the update of data to a single "receptionist", and everyone 
> else
> simply sees current data.  Then enough concurrency issues go so that the
> remaining issues probably don't matter for the project.  It would be 
> possible
> for a viewer to see an inconsistent state - but I think that that could be
> discussed in class and otherwise ignored.
>
> Its still possible for a web page situation to see inconsistent data too. 
> Say
> you change the name of a linked page.  If you update the page containing 
> the
> link first than people click on a link that points to an as yet not 
> existent
> page.  If you change the name first then people viewing the page with the
> link click on a link that now goes nowhere.  So PHP/MySQL does not
> intrinsically solve the problems you have mentioned.  And the solutions to
> these problems are equally applicable to both technologies.
>
> Personally I'd stick with Java (but I have never taught it at year 12 
> level).
> That is also because I know Java well.  I programmed using it commercially
> for a decade or more but don't know PHP at all.  So much less learning for 
> me
> to stick with Java.
>
> David.
>
>
> On Monday 18 December 2006 23:18, Kevork Krozian wrote:
>> Hi David,
>>
>>   The portable device task can be done reasonably easily with java or a
>> java IDE . No problems here.  I will have to add that an ex student of 
>> mine
>> did do a similar assignment in 3rd year in his software engineering 
>> degree
>> this year but I digress as how hard was this meant to be is another 
>> debate.
>> I have used java as my programming language for the last 5 years. I have
>> used vectors, binary files, lists and other objects to make the tasks
>> realistic or challenging.
>>
>> Back to Sofdev 2007. Keep in mind both programming tasks must be done 
>> with
>> the same language. But ... consider the second programming task.
>>
>> This involves writing a program that will take into account a networked
>> information system objective. Sounds innocent doesn't it ? If you read 
>> the
>> teacher's advice the sample task is a doctors' clinic ( a couple of
>> doctors, nurses and receptionists ) a small LAN with a fileserver (
>> starting to look like client server ... ) with patients coming in for
>> appointments and a database of patients and their appointment details on
>> the file server ( looks like a relational database now with a 1 to many
>> relationship of patients to appointments) all accessible from several
>> workstations. It would be normal enough to expect concurrent access and
>> shareability of the database ie. We don't ask the nurse to get out of the
>> program when a doctor wants to use it. Looking around, I did consider 
>> java
>> but it is too much to manage the multi client server access requirement. 
>> So
>> what to do ?
>>
>> Thinking through we all use multi user concurrent access all day every 
>> day
>> . Where ? On a web server, we access the same page concurrently and are
>> totally unaware of it. Eg. booking a computer room on the intranet, 
>> logging
>> a computer fault, etc. all the time and if we have a database behind it, 
>> we
>> then have the concurrency managed by the web server and the ODBC or other
>> database driver eg SQL server
>>
>> So for the above reasons I have switched to PHP and MySQL for next year 
>> for
>> sofdev and also for year 11 .
>>
>> For those interested I will be delivering some PD through VITTA early 
>> next
>> year on using this approach of PHP and MySQL in several 2 hour block
>> sessions.
>>
>> I would be happy to hear any comments about these issues.
>>
>> Kevork Krozian
>> Mailing List Creator and Administrator
>> kevork at edulists.com.au
>> www.edulists.com.au
>> Tel: 0419 356 034
>>   ----- Original Message -----
>>   From: Mills, David J
>>   To: is at edulists.com.au
>>   Sent: Monday, December 18, 2006 2:58 PM
>>   Subject: [Year 12 Its] Programming for small devices
>>
>>
>>   For all those teaching Software Development next year - the focus of 
>> Unit
>> 3 Outcome 2 is to "On completion of this unit the student should be able 
>> to
>> produce a software module suitable for implementation on a portable
>> computing device, in response to a design specification, verify its
>> performance against this specifi cation and explain how the program has
>> taken into account an ethical dilemma or a legal obligation."
>>
>>   The new NetBeans 5.5 release has a mobility pack that allows you to
>> develop and test Java applications for mobile devices such as phones and
>> PDAs.  The software created can be installed on a suitable device such as 
>> a
>> phone and used by you or the students.
>>
>>   The software you will need (all of which is legally free) is:
>>     a.. Java's Software development kit (available from java.sun.com)
>>     b.. NetBeans 5.5 (available from netbeans.org)
>>     c.. NetBeans Mobility Pack (from the same location)
>>   When testing the software the Development environment opens up a window
>> that looks like a phone (you get to choose whether you are developing for 
>> a
>> phone or a PDA and you can specify the screen resolutions of your device)
>> and you click the keypad buttons on screen to emulate the phone's
>> behaviour.
>>
>>   Cheers,
>>
>>   David.
>>
>>
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>