[Year 12 SofDev] python UI

Thu Aug 6 08:29:12 AEST 2015

Sure. But the students still need to create a software product with a GUI.

From: sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Mark
Sent: Wednesday, 5 August 2015 5:47 PM
To: Year 12 Software Development Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] python UI

Dear language-choosers.

As you know, learning any approved programming language brings with it the key knowledge and skills required for the SD exam (which can never assume experience with any particular language.)

This, I acknowledge to be true of all previous SD exams.

Even rather esoteric questions such as, "Can an array contain mixed data types?" has not sullied the pristine waters of the purely-theoretical, basic-concepts SD exams.

This is a quiet, unacknowledged yet significant achievement by the writers of VCAA SD exams.
If you've ever tried to write an SD exam, you'd appreciate the difficulty involved.

(ITA exams are a different matter, especially with parochial MS Access vs Filemaker RDBMS questions. But let's move on...)

VCAA has even taken the offensive to defend against unwanted adulteration of basic concepts: for example, SD teachers started saturating outcomes with external SQL databases to the point where basic programming concepts were being marginalised. VCAA stepped in and dictated that "databases are not to be used to support the construction of solutions".
That was a sweet moment for the focus of SD on core business.

In over a decade of writing VCAA exam post mortems, I have yet to find fault with an SD's exam's fixation on any language's syntax or philosophy. This is usually because of the exams' focus on pseudocode which neatly separates an algorithm from its source code.

This is a beautiful model for examination. It focuses only on key knowledge and skills; it renders individual syntactical implementations in any language irrelevant.
-Arrays is arrays.
-Loops is loops.
-IF is IF.

Pseudocode removes trivial syntactical differences:
- It makes no difference where the parentheses and semicolons are supposed to appear.
- Don't put invariant calculations inside loops.
- Break monolithic code into modules.
- Test for boundary conditions in loops.
- 'Less than' is different to 'Less than or equal to'

I am glad that pseudocode in recent VCAA exam years has accommodated common constructs such as counted loops (e.g. FOR...NEXT) instead of relying entirely on primitive DO/LOOP and WHILE/WEND structures.

I am delighted that students are now expected to be able to write basic pseudocode rather than just interpret it.

It matters little which approved language you learned.
If it encompasses the basic programming concepts, it's legitimate and valuable to students.

Learn ANY language and you'll learn them all.

M<arm
(My usual mis-typing of "Mark")

On 5 August 2015 at 14:19, Victoria Farrell <FarrellV at humegrammar.vic.edu.au<mailto:FarrellV at humegrammar.vic.edu.au>> wrote:
I’m just sore coz I learnt VB and Python.

From: sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au> [mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au>] On Behalf Of Baas, Benjamin B
Sent: Wednesday, 5 August 2015 1:42 PM
To: Year 12 Software Development Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] python UI

Will lolcode work for you?

http://lolcode.org/

Ben
-Alkira.

From: sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au> [mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au>] On Behalf Of Mark
Sent: Wednesday, 5 August 2015 1:13 PM
To: Year 12 Software Development Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] python UI

hehehehe.

Actually, I'd be keen to learn a language if it were called 'Dramatically Rhetorical Chipmunk'.

Or 'Startled Handsome Wombat' - as long as it was event-driven and OOP.

On 5 August 2015 at 13:02, Victoria Farrell <FarrellV at humegrammar.vic.edu.au<mailto:FarrellV at humegrammar.vic.edu.au>> wrote:
[cid:image001.png at 01D0D021.F8A1B5F0]

From: sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au> [mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au>] On Behalf Of Mark
Sent: Wednesday, 5 August 2015 12:02 PM
To: Year 12 Software Development Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] python UI

Hi Victoria.

I suspect your question is dramatically rhetorical, but for the sake of those who don't know...

For this year, VCAA neatly lists the approved languages<http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/correspondence/bulletins/2010/June/vce_study.aspx#4>:

  *   Basic (object-oriented variations only, e.g. VB.NET<http://VB.NET>) - including VB6 still !
  *   C++
  *   C#
  *   Objective-C
  *   Pascal (object-oriented variations only, e.g. Delphi)
  *   Java
  *   Perl
  *   PHP
  *   Python
  *   Ruby
Sadly, neither Scratch nor QuickBASIC 4.5 qualifies  ;-)

But henceforth, for the new study design (2016-2019) there is no longer an approved list of programming languages. There will, however, be a list of functions of which a chosen language must be capable.

Mark

On 5 August 2015 at 11:48, Victoria Farrell <FarrellV at humegrammar.vic.edu.au<mailto:FarrellV at humegrammar.vic.edu.au>> wrote:
In SD, students need to create working solutions where the interface is required to be user friendly…. So what language are we supposed to use?????

From: sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au> [mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au>] On Behalf Of Laurie Savage
Sent: Wednesday, 5 August 2015 11:43 AM
To: Year 12 Software Development Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] python UI

That's what I like about it! I'm not sure a GUI approach to language learning is always the right way in at this level; although I like the Scratch approach to problem solving eventually the students have to dive into syntax. I'm very fond of Python, just not very expert at it - there's always something else to do at work!
Laurie

Laurie Savage
https://sites.google.com/a/pvgc.vic.edu.au/mr-savage/home

On 5 August 2015 at 09:13, Guy Flaherty <Guy.Flaherty at xavier.vic.edu.au<mailto:Guy.Flaherty at xavier.vic.edu.au>> wrote:
There are a bunch of Python Web Frameworks Laurie. Probably the biggest of them is Django (http://djangoproject.com/). I am not teaching SD again this year but if I were I would look at using something like this and JQueryMobile (http://jquerymobile.com/) and get the students building mobile apps for their phones.

Python is not really a GUI focussed language. You can do it, but other languages are probably going to be easier to teach and use. Don’t get me wrong, I love Python. Been using it for 15 years now, but not for GUI programming.

Good luck,

Guy Flaherty
Xavier College

From: sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au> [mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au>] On Behalf Of Laurie Savage
Sent: Wednesday, 5 August 2015 8:43 AM
To: Year 12 Software Development Teachers' Mailing List <sofdev at edulists.com.au<mailto:sofdev at edulists.com.au>>
Subject: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] python UI

I haven't cracked using Python as a web tool yet so I'm interested in how people go about this. Is there anything like Ruby on Rails? (maybe Python on a Swing?)
Laurie

Laurie Savage
https://sites.google.com/a/pvgc.vic.edu.au/mr-savage/home

On 4 August 2015 at 22:41, Andrew Pate <arp at mentonegrammar.net<mailto:arp at mentonegrammar.net>> wrote:
Hi all
Just wondering through what mechanism those of you using python as your language are having students build UI? Is it web or otherwise platform independent?
I have been using PHP for a few years now, and probably will continue, but I have a number of students in 9-11 taking the Grok NCSS challenge and thought about looking into python as my language. Also, the Algorithmics course mandates python, and I would like to offer that, although I know that UI is not so important there.

Thanks
Andrew.

Andrew Pate
Mentone Grammar

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