Fw: [Year 12 Its] Programming for small devices
Kevork Krozian
kevork at edulists.com.au
Thu Dec 21 23:47:01 EST 2006
> Hi David,
>
> Thanks for keeping this discussion going as you are the only teacher who
> has posted to the list addressing these issues.
> No doubt any number of approaches can attempt to address the issues.
> Record locking and other techniques presumably can be used but why would
> we go to the trouble of doing this ourselves, is probably more my point.
>
> I actually did a bit of work with jbuilder with a database on a shared
> drive a few months ago to see how it would work with 2 or more users. The
> sample exercises had the following features:
> 1. there was always the need to refresh the view on the form to get up
> to date data
> 2. We couldn't quite get concurrency to work
> 3. We had to build a client application in order to be able to use the
> database
> 4. The client application has to be deployed everywhere an end user
> wishes to connect to the database.
>
>
> My thoughts with using a browser as the client was that
> 1. It is universally accessible without having to build it. Anyone with a
> browser is able to connect to the database.
> 2. It can be used on a mobile device - php even detects the browser and
> can redirect to another page depending on the browser category. The
> version of web page language on mobile devices is WML (wireless markup
> language ) vs HTML for standard browsers.
> 3. It links to a database at the back end so easily - one statement to
> set up a persistent connection to say MySQL
> 4. It is up to date
> 5. Having a networked solution on the internet is the ultimate network
> and accessible from anywhere in the world.
>
> Having looked at PHP it is really a very easy language to learn. Data
> structures, controls and syntax is very C-ish and it has a nice feel.
> I think this list is priviliged to have a former commercial java
> programmer on board and your experience would be a great asset to many who
> would wish to follow the same path.
> I look forward to staying in touch so please do keep the list updated with
> your endeavours.
>
> Best Wishes
> Kevork
>
>
> ----- 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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>>
>
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