Week 1 IE

And it starts. The clock currently sits at 237.21.21.52, and i am FEAKING OUT. We have after exhaustive effort made groups and i am so glad with the people I have ended up with. This being my fourth year i was worried about not knowing the skill sets of the other people. But thankfully I have worked with both Evan and Ryan in separate units and am confident that we have both the drive and ability to effectively complete this project.

I have so many worries about this unit. I work part time (23 hours) and study full time. When I’m not at uni I’m at work. I do 12 hour days as it is and I can already see how time consuming this project will be. To think that it will last a whole year is crazy. This is such a huge commitment, and not only my grades but that of the other team members are sitting on my shoulders. And that is a hefty burden to consider. I am thankful to know I am not the only person in this position. Most of my team members are in the same boat, which gives me relief because they understand my time constraints, but it also worries me because we are so handicapped by the maximum amount of hours that can be put into this project each week.

I have obviously known about the industrial experience project and what it entails since i started this course. In my previous years i have considered which role i thought i would play in the group. I’m normally the person in a group who ends up just doing it all because everyone else just slacks off. Having doing programming units and seeing how so many people struggle with it, i figured i would naturally be placed in that role. I think I’m a very good programmer, as I’m always the person who helps others in previous units. We came in today and the people i have chosen i believe, like myself, are all rounders. So when we were discussing the roles each person would play i said (in contrary to what i previously thought over the past few years) that i would be happy to do whatever was needed, which in this case was documentation.

I am happy to go along with this as I feel that the roles we have assigned ourselves don't really mean much. I believe the project manager and client liaison roles should be fixed unless they are not able to perform it adequately. Apart from them i think Evan, Ryan and myself will simply switch in and out of each of the other roles. The analysis, design, documenting, programming and testing of this project are HUGE roles and the time frame for each process to be completed will be so short that the group will have to take on the mentality of 'all hands on deck' to nut everything out.

I am excited, but oh so very scared!

Week 8: The nature of good design

OK one thing that has been annoying me in this unit, why the hell wont anyone answer questions in tutes! i mean dam people what we are being asked is not that hard! i know you know the answer, just open your mouth. That said...

CSA:
Client-Server divides programs into two types
• Server – manages information system resources or provides
well defined services for client
• Client – communicates with server to request resources or
services
• Advantage – Deployment flexibility
– Location, scalability, maintainability
• Disadvantage – Potential performance, security, and
reliability issues from network communication

Summary:

• Systems design is process of organizing and structuring
components of system to allow construction
(programming) of new system
• Design phase of project consists of activities that relate to
design of components of new system
– Application architecture, user interfaces, system interfaces,
database, network diagram, system controls
– Prototyping may be required to specify any part or all of the
design

• Inputs to design activities are diagrams, or models, built
during analysis
• Outputs of design are also set of diagrams, or models, to
describe architecture of new system and detailed logic of
programming components
• Inputs, design activities, and outputs are different
depending on whether a structured approach or an
object-oriented approach is used
• Architectural design adapts to development environment
and decomposes design into layers

Week 7

Ok so the assignment has been started finally, i think i should still have enough time to get through it without stressing myself out. Although there are other assignments due during this time... ow well we will get thourgh :). Was looking through the sample assignment again after starting, and i must say that i am so happy that we were given this because it would have been very hard otherwise to understand how these things are supposed to be set out and what is exactly required in each section.

Again i am battling against Visual Paradigm and loosing. Peter mentioned that there are some people that can just sit at case tools and work straight from there; i have found that i AM NOT one of these people. I like pen and paper, so i suspect the program will be the last stop when completing the assignment.

I like the idea of Partial Matrix's, although their objectiveness can be biased by the user and their desired outcome if done correctly it defiantly shows the pros and cons of the different options.

Better get back to the tute

Till next we meet,
Paul

Week 6

These posts are getting smaller and smaller, hmm i kind of knew this would happen! OK so week 6, MORE AND MORE AND MORE of the UML, i don’t see the point in use case models.. they look and seem stupid but hopefully ill understand what the hell they are good for after the assignment. Started using visual-paradigm today, ok for one it would be nice to be taught how to use it! you know instead of just going 'here use'. It was basically trial and error which is so not professional. Meh my rant and obligation post has been completed.

Week 5

Events! ok so after the tute i think im finnally getting my head around events verses activities. But have a feeling that i may need to be revise this when completing the first assignment. I find i learn amost everything from doing the assignments. From the information presented in the lecture the DFD's seem like its going to take a LONG TIME to get them close to the real life abstraction, so i better get a move on and get this assignment into gear.

Week 4:

Begining analysis (but does not reference the chapter of the same name in the book, really means chapter 5):

The starting point of analysis is is attempting to model an event. An even being an occurrence at a specific time and place that triggers a system process. There are three types of events:

External
- Outside the system
- Initiated by external agent or actor

Temporal
- Occurs as result of reaching a point in time
- based on system deadlines

State
- Something inside system triggers processing need

The rest of the lecture was basically about all the different modelling diagrams contained in the UML. It may become confusing when differentiating them because a lot of them are structured the same way and include the same information. We have already looked at Class diagrams in java and ERD/DSD in database so I’m not too worried, but intend to go back and look over the differences.

My father is a member of a private golf club that has such a system in place, so I’m aware of most of the extra information need to operate. This helped immensely when interviewing the mock client because i could already foresee the answers to the questions i had and was merely clarifying what i already knew.

Hu is on first?