Personal Blogs

Done, dusted, finished, over, complete, etc. So, looking back, was it worth it?

The first part was very worth it as it taught me how to program just at the right time and cemented a new career for me at my 40th birthday. I enjoyed my twenty years as a trader in the City and thought that the stress would drop away when I left. How wrong I was. I spent the next 32 years making most of my money from being able to program and being able to manage projects. My banking speciality made it easy and kept me apart from the mainstream of developers. It took me to 29 countries around the world, including Hawaii on two occasions! I never travelled below the equator so I missed out on Australia, New Zealand and South Africa but, apart from that, I have seen the world, at least the business centres of the world. 

The stress in trading is when things start to go wrong. It is very easy, as in gaming, to chase one's losses and to get into trouble. So long as you are sensible, you can have a great time and make some good money. I was fortunate in that the good times there and from developing came when I had four children so we all benefitted. However, building a complex banking system and selling it to banks in the Middle East is a recipe for stress and anguish. Those phone calls when the system wouldn't start in Bahrain (3 hours ahead of us) left me, quite often in the early days, laying in bed with my eyes shut working out how to instruct them what to do. I remember one occasion where the only thing to say was - I will be on the first plane! Two weeks later, I got back! I well remember the 80-90 hour weeks - signing into one bank in the City at 9pm, into the next at 11pm and getting a phone call from a friend at the last bank asking if I really did sign in at 1am! Well, I did. That was what was required to keep "mission critical" systems going - at least until we had sufficiently trained staff to do the work instead of me.

The system we had was written in UCSD Pascal on a Pascal engine from a company in the US called Stride Micro (previously Sage). They built a Motorola 68000 based multiuser box that ran the UCSD stuff. On the front of this we had some nice colour HP monitors. These, even in 1985, had touch screen capability so our systems were installed minus keyboards. Very innovative but with one little flaw. You can only touch what you can see so you could never use a buffer to run ahead. Eventually, we converted to using an HP graphics tablet which proved to be much quicker with the advantage of that input buffer. Eventually, we moved to HP-UX using networks of HP unix boxes.

Finally, we ran out of steam and I ended up working for one of the big banking systems houses as their project manager for front office systems and worked there for a few years until they didn't appear to want to stay in that market. I was then made redundant and went my own way. During these years I had built-up a personal skill in writing Smalltalk and I have been a consultant in that field ever since.

OK, back to the OU. I have differing views of my time with the OU give the big gap in the middle. I found the first years interesting, stretching and worth while. There were regular tutorials in Cambridge (I was living in Billericay and then Gidea Park, Essex). A group of us would travel up and have a great day. Then there were the summer schools. It was the M101 summer school where I realised that I could write programs and had  worthwhile ideas. These involved lots of new friends, lots of alcohol and lots of learning. 

The second stint was all "first run" courses - TM351 and TM351. These were very poorly managed, to my mind, and were delivered in a "just in time"  manner which left us poor students worried and feeling unloved. The interaction from the team on TM351 was terrible. The forum moderators on TM352 made up for some of the problems - thanks Richard!). The EMAs were poorly defined and supported and it is a wonder that anyone passed either of these courses. TM470 was better but there was little for the course team (is there actually one?) to do. My tutor was very good but the structure of Learning Outcomes didn't suit my project at all. Writing a system for my personal model railway made meeting LEs for literature citation, LSEPI and peer-review difficult to achieve. It was my inability to fulfil these that dropped my mark. I was getting 16-17 for each LE in TMA01 and 02 but then these topics began to impinge.

I wouldn't like to go back to the days of preprinted study books and no internet. However, I didn't like the online tutorials. Mind you, I didn't like the "real" tutorial that I went to in Cambridge as only three of us turned up and, after a round trip of 4 hours, it was a bit of a waste of time.

So, I am pleased and very glad that I bothered to come back. I have a student loan but my plan is to live to 102 and get it wiped out - grin. As I will never get a pension that is big enough to cause a repayment, that's the only way forward. I have gone back to my retirement hobbies - taking lots of photos, making plastic scale models and, of course, my US outline model railroad. I again have time to play my concertina and to pick up on my autobiography and my novel. As retired people often say, when did I ever find the time to go to work?

Well, that's it. I hope that you have enjoyed this blog. I think that both the Wordpress and the OU versions should stay up "forever". Don't forget to check out my other blogs:

Gentle Scale Models
Gentle Model Railways
David's other hobbies
A life of stress and good times
Life on the Ipswich Waterfront

My E student number puts me as a 1974 signing and my first course - T100 - starting in February 1975! 1976 was TS282 - Electromagnetiics and Electronics plus T291 - Instrumentation. 1977 saw me taking M251 - An Algorithmic Approach to Computing and T321 Telecommunications. We had to do two foundation course to get a degree so I went back to maths with M101 (first run of a course) in 1978. That makes three times that I had to tackle Calculus (forgetting when I did it at school). 1979 saw me cruising with TM221 - The Digital Computer - a new concept, ish, in those days.

I then dropped out of a couple of courses over the next two years and then decided that, with four children - a dog - and a job as a currency trader in the City - I was probably busy enough and that I would come back to it. In those days, the signup was for life - i.e., I could come back whenever I wanted to. That time came in 2016 when I signed up (if only I had known then what I know now - smile)  for TM351 - Data Management and Analysis. That was followed by TM352 this year and all topped off with TM470.

Well, was it worth it? Yes, because it gave me a second career  after I decided that 20 years trading was enough for anyone. Mind you, if I hadn't moved on from the BASIC that the OU taught me then I would not have got anywhere. I moved onto UCSD Pascal - and in the process made some good friends in the Computer faculty of the OU - big Pascal users at the time. My first software company did all of its work on trading room front end systems in Pascal and we had touch screens in 1985 so not much new there then! By 1990, I had moved on to coding in Smalltalk having been convinced early on that OO was the way to go forward. By the mid 1990s the OU was also teaching in Smalltalk so they followed in my footsteps. Unfortunately, they then moved on to Java and left me behind (but happy).

I finally retired in 2012 (at 67). It took me two years to sort out what I could and couldn't do in the OU - because I was dependent upon student loans, I had to meet their criteria. As I had done a single level 3, I could not go backwards and I had to stay within the same technology area to get the loans. Up until then I had some difficulty, also, in finding courses that could teach me anything, having been using OO techniques for 22 years by then. That's when TM351 came out so I jumped at the chance - and even learned a new language - Python - on the way. This was followed by another 1st run course (that makes three that I have done) TM352. Both of these course had problems and I didn't do quite as well as I think I should have done - mostly because of tricky EMAs.

So, where am I now. 11,784 words in the body of my TM470 report with 24,525 in total, including my project blog and my JavaScript code. It is finished, submitted and put to bed. One typo that I know about but, as my wife says, "don't touch it as you will only work on it some more". Will I pass? I got 70% and 81% in the first two TMAs and dropped to 66% in TMA03 due to lack of stakeholders and literature. I have done enough there. If I get a decent EMA result and thus a Grade 2 pass, I should get a 2.1 otherwise it will be a 2.2. I can live with that. Ely, here I come.

The EMA

I didn't find that the EMA was too bad. In fact, I have enjoyed the course overall. The only nasty bit was the fault of TM352 and its lack of preparation of JavaScript (of which I knew nothing at all). I never did get the geolocation stuff to work in either TMA03 or the EMA these so suffered accordingly. My project was to produce software that would provide routing information for US type freight cars on a model railway (railroad). I never did get anyone to join in with the planning or testing so I was left to build it for myself. I never could find any literature out there that covered this topic so was left quoting my own book collection (mainly one book dated 1954!). This left my tutor a little unhappy but I have addressed all of this in the report and, hopefully, that will be enough.

Final Results?

Leaving the City at 40 years old was my choice but I believe that, what with the Big Bang in 1987, my days were probably numbered as I was "old school" and there was a mass clear out of my type of trader. As it was, my summer school in 1978 got me programming some trading related calculations which eventually grew to me leaving to start my own front office software company. As this is pretty much what I did for the next 20 years, it was a lucky break as, without that knowledge, I would have been an out of work trader. I was also able to build up a reputation as a good Smalltalk coder which gave me lots of consultancy work going on from when I finally retired from that area. This consultancy work still brings me in an income at the age of 72 so, ultimately, I am very grateful to the OU for all that it taught me.

What is next?

I have more work to do on the freight car routing as I plan to use it on my own model railroad. It works and meets the target set for TM470 but needs some more work now I have lost the constraints of the course requirements. As it stands, it is a well structured client server system with a modern No-SQL database as a backend. The visual interface is on a 10" Lenovo Android tablet so is really handy to use about the railroad (no being tied to a screen and keyboard).

I have some work to do putting together a web site for a friend who is an aviation artist and I have my regular consultancy work. My wife has put a brake on any future formal study as she reckons, and I agree with her, that I should be able to relax in my retirement and not get worked up about another assignment that is difficult. I would like to improve my electronics skills as that would be useful for the model railroad. I have found an MIT online course on "Circuits and Electronics" but this doesn't have any deadlines so I can stroll along as I wish.

Conclusion 

I have "enjoyed" these last couple of years and I will miss the regularity of working against targets but I will be pleased to take the stress out of my daily life. I did get to visit the OU campus for a day of student consultation, which was fun. My recent studying has been worthwhile and is all being utilised in other projects. I will do one more wrap up blog once I have my results for Tm470 but I don't expect that to be until late November. I will just have to sit here with my fingers crossed.

In the last blog entry I was worried that I would even continue to the end of the Honours. It depended on me passing TM352. In my heart I couldn't believe that I would fail but I had to have a plan - I always have a plan! I didn't fail. I got a Grade 3 - which given that I didn't answer 30% of the questions in the EMA was very good. This meant that I could continue with TM470.

TM470 TMA03 went in on 4th July and I hoped for a quick turnaround so that I could have. as long as possible to work on the EMA (10,000 words!). However, I had to wait until yesterday to get my result. It was a little disappointing as, previously, I had got 70% and 81%. I ended up with 66% but it seems that there was a gaping hole in my report. In the Learning Outcome groups I got 16, 7, 15,14, and 14. As you can see, I am pretty consistent in my marks - except LO4/LO6/LO7. These are the areas where I am supposed to get others involved in the project to comment and offer suggestions. Plus, it seems that I must quote lots of sources of information to back up my project. 

Well, firstly, I have tried to get others involved but instead of discussing what I am doing as an overall project those that have commented seem to either believe that I am designing a system based on 1970s technology or that I am trying to emulate a "real" railroad. "Why aren't you using SQL; wouldn't searching be quicker if you used SQL - and so on. Well, I am working in a disposable world - once you have defined and run a single train, all that you need to know is where everything ended up. Retaining the train details, etc. isn't necessary. Hence, I am using an Amazon-like Key/Value database where I can quickly get the one piece of information that I need and save back a new copy.

With regards to the "real" railroad - the immensely complicated Java Model Railroad Interface includes a supremely competent routing package - under "Operations" but it is way to complex for people who just want to "run the next train" on a small model railroad.

The other problem is one of quoting sources. The only relevant sources for explaining and assisting in my project are either books that I own - i.e. not in an on-line library - or similar items of software already available. The books that I have are quite detailed at the level I am working but my tutor doesn't seem impressed that I am using 1950s documentation. However, as I am modelling a railroad system that ceased to be around 1975, then these books are very relevant. After 1975, railroads moved much more heavily to intermodal traffic and the - we deliver to your factory - hasn't disappeared but is not very common nowadays. The existing systems are either PC/Mac based or spreadsheet packages. My project is to develop a tablet front end using technologies and techniques gained from my OU studies. It is NOT to develop a commercial package that suits everyone's needs. That would be an impossible task in the timeframe of TM470. As it is, because of the TM352 fiasco, I have had to drop some of my functionality so that I can have a working version by 11th September.

Happy days. I am currently struggling to build a dynamic HTML table using JavaScript and the data from my database. Once that is sorted, all I have left to do is to build the tablet interface to the - build a train, run a train, confirm new locations - functionality and the software will be done. Then, I have to try and grasp what my tutor is telling me and to compose a 10,000 word report that will get me a Grade 2 or 3. I am hoping for a Grade 2 in which case I ought to get a 2.1 Hons. That will do me at 72 years of age.

When I wrote my last post I knew nothing about Javascript at all. Today I am submitting the End of Module Assessment with a working Android app based on Javascript. That is a good result. 

As for the rest of the EMA - well, I didn't like Q1 which was all about Java beans. I couldn't get the PUT working so didn't finish the whole question. 

Q3 was a 1,500 word essay on four points regarding the background corporations future pathways and options for expanding their infrastructure so it was all in-house/cloud comparisons.

Q2 was the best part (except for maps!). We had to create a mobile android app for the company salespersons to use. I did an assessment of the marks for all of the sections and decided that I could do all of the easy bits of Q2 but not the actual app because, as I said above, I knew nothing about Javascript. I signed up for a £10 Javascript course from Udemy and found it quite absorbing. This determined me to have a go. 

I hated the working environment. My Smalltalk IDE gives me individual method windows and great searches for senders or implementors so I can get around very quickly. Javascript using Sublime as a text editor is a case of jumping up and down in a large sequential file. I didn't find this fun but finally got to grips with it. Stackoverflow is normally useful but the javascript answers were normally way too "clever-dick" for me. I found help on a range of sites. Plus, I needed to get my HTML up to better speed, as I normally use a screen editor. The W3C site was good for that. Some people were talking about writing 800 lines but I finished up with 210. I was wondering whether to put lots of comments in but my guess is that the marker will have enough to do without going through my Javascript looking for comments. He wants to know if the Functional Requirements (FR) have been met - job done! 

We have to write a guide, which isn't marked but has to be there to get any marks. In mine, I have been careful to note where the FRs have been met.

Two big problems which are going to limit my marks:

1. I have never been able to get a map to appear. I tried in Block 3; I tried in TMA 03; I tried in Mike Lloyds little sample app; I tried in the EMA. Ony once did a map appear on my Lenovo tablet. Fortunately, I took a screen shot as it was never to appear again. As it appeared once, I assume that my environment was right but...
2. I tried the REST/PUT request in Q1 and got a pile of Java errors in the Netbeans Glassfish console and was never able to sort that out in spite of the fixes from the course team. I also tried it in javascript but got into a bigger mess with time running out so took it out again. Therefore, I could never save back an order as I could never get one. Mind you, I can't find an FR for doing that so maybe I will get away with it(??)

There has been a lot of complaint on the forum about Q3 as everyone seemed to think that it was an inappropriate question at this stage of the module. There were 6 topics and you had to choose 4 to write a total of 1,500 words. I actually found it quite easy to do and couldn't see what the fuss was about.

Right, well that is it. TM352 done and finished. By the looks of it, i will get around 55% for the EMA which will get me a grade 3 pass. According to the calculator, because I missed parts of TMA 03 (maps!) my TMA score is such that, even with 99% for the EMA, I can't do better than a grade 3. I now have a few weeks waiting for the result whilst I get on with the next phase of TM470. I have lots of code to write and a TMA due in early July so off I go.

So, I got my results back and I should be happy. I got 71% for Tm352 and 70% for Tm470. I was surprised at the mark for TM352 because, as I mentioned in my previous blog entry, I felt that it was a "bit of a dog's breakfast". Not being sure that I understood all the questions, I didn't expect to do very well. The main thing that I felt I would fall down on was the analysis of Amazon AWS with regard to the network required. I ended up with a diagram that was pretty much the same as in the books but my description was liked and I scored quite well. 

I was a bit disappointed with the TM470 result as I had previously sent it to the tutor for comment and he didn't really raise anything. The little he mentioned I addressed so I was a bit surprised to get 70%. However, the feeling is that if you get a bad result in the first TMA then you generally do well at the end. No one has said what happens when you get a good result so I will keep going.

OK let's move from the past to the now.

TM470

I am currently preparing for TMA 02. This just builds on TMA 01 but needs 4,000 words so the content is increasing. I have found a means of  preparing for this. I have created a BLOG, where I try to explain what the project is all about. Thus, much of what I am writing there will be useful for the TMA. My project plan required me to have a structure to my project and I did this by describing an iterative process for the software build. I am currently at the end of Iteration 1 whereby I needed to have the basic network structure built with the static data installed in the database and displayable on a temporary web front end. I also needed to have a basic result from the decision engine - also displayable. This is all working now and can be tested on the project web site. The web site is HERE and the prototype software can be accessed HERE.

I guess you can see that I am comfortable with the current situation and expect to have the TMA completed on time for the 12th April.

TM352

This is a different kettle of fish. I was saying, in the last blog entry, that I thought that the course was lightweight. Well, I was wrong! Not my fault, I hasten to add. We are currently trying to build web apps for an Android phone. What they did for this block was to give us three parts that discussed mobile phones in the community. They then gave us one part on how to set up a project for a phone app and then one part to build one. This has resulted in an explosion of questions and cries for help across the whole student body on this course. I can't remember seeing so many forum posts about one part of a block or about a TMA.

Forget about the TMA, I can't get past part 5 of the block. We are being asked to construct an app that has a timer, a photo button and a map. I can do the first ones but cannot get the map to show. The problem is that they have given us a long Javascript program which I can read (being an experienced programmer) but they have given us no teaching on how this was constructed. Then they ask us to insert into this the code to make the map work without, it seems, much instruction on the whys and wherefores of how it all works. It seems a pity that they wasted 3 parts of the block chatting when this was coming up. I am completely stuck on this and time is running out. This TMA is due on the 13th April so it clashes horribly with the other one. The trouble is that the TMA builds on the project in the block and as I can't do the project........

There is one way out and it seems a bit of a cheat. I have 79% and 71% for my two previous TMAs. Add these together and average them over three TMAs and I have 50% for each. I only need 40% average to pass the TMA side so i could drop out of this TMA. There is a second part to it and that requires me coming up with a simple phone app, comparing it to others with the same functions and getting some potential customer feedback. This is worth 35% so if I do well on this and get some bits of the rest done I might climb up to 50%  which would give me nearly 66% average. I could live with that but I shouldn't be having to mess around like this. The EMA is probably going to build on this but that doesn't conflict with a TM470 TMA and isn't due until June 1st so I could spend a good bit of time sorting this out.

Opinion so far on TM352 - very poorly constructed - too much time waffling and too big a jump in demands at the end. I will be happy with a grade 3 pass but I really ought to do better than that given my experience. Those two 70%+ results should have continued into the 3rd block to give me a 2 at the end but, there we are. Onwards and upwards!

Well, it has been a long time since I posted. There are two reasons:

1. I took time off over Christmas as the workload was quite light and

2. I was removed from TM470 as they had booked too many students for the number of tutors that they had arranged.

In all of the confusion, I really didn't feel like writing a blog as I might have said a few things that I could later regret. I will cover the current course (TM352) first.

TM352

This is proving to be, quite worryingly, boring. I know that I have used a lot of the cloud stuff so most of this shouldn't be new to me and that is what has happened. Except that some of the concepts of IP addresses is quite difficult to grasp (or so blindingly obvious that I am missing something). I was quite worried about the first question in TMA02 as, like the questions in TMA01, it  is a "holistic" question. This seems to mean that there is no correct answer but the tutor just wants to see that you have mentioned all of the important points and understood them. The question was to do with the benefits and risks of a company moving to the cloud.

In the end, of course, once I sat down to write, it all came out and I managed to get everything that I wanted to say within the word count limit. Question 2 requires us to create a fail over system in the cloud using Open Stack. I have run through the initial units and have seen how it all works. I just have to move on and get the fail over and load balancer configuration going. This is all described in the books and we only have to run through the process and take screen shots. Mind you, the system is so short of resources that it is causing issues for the students when connecting. The tutorial the other night was supposed to show us how it all worked but as major parts of the Open Stack stuff on the OU Servers didn't work, it was a bit of a waste of time. I sat through the tutorial until I couldn't stand any more and dropped it with 30 minutes to go

I am quite concerned about Question 3 as it is all abut doing a drawing of an Amazon AWS set up. That wouldn't be too bad except that they want IP addresses appended. I have to read the last unit of the block but I am not sure that it will give me everything that I need. Mind you, I am always in panic mode before I set down to do a TMA question so maybe I should just shut up?

TM470 - The Computing and IT Project

This is due to start on 1st February, when we should be assigned a tutor.  I enrolled on 15th July last year and, on 18th November, the web site opened for discussions and advice regarding the proposed projects. It did open earlier but closed again. It seems that the team had a few problems because, there was everyone beavering away creating projects and discussing them on the forum when, completely out of the blue, me and about 250 other students were told that they had been removed from the course and would be re-enrolled for the course starting in February 2018!

I asked for a consultation with a "Senior Advisor". During the conversation, it came out that I am a) 72 (well in March); b) Very Arthritic and c) registered as a disabled student with the OU. On that basis she suggested that I would have a good case not to wait a year before taking this, my final module. I filled in the form, during which I mentioned that deferring when 35 years old for one year is a lot less risky than deferring for one year at 72! Sad, but true, especially with my arthritis getting worse by the month. Anyway, I put it in, not expecting too much and then, two days ago at 8:50 in the evening I heard that I had a confirmed place. Great. I know that it overlaps with TM352 for some months but I am retired so I can handle that. It just means that I can finish this year and not have to hang on until October 2018!

So, I am busy honing my project. I now have a tutor, although he hasn't contacted me yet, and all the forums open up on Saturday. The next few months are going to be great - coding mobile phones and designing a project!

I have been doing the stuff in the first block for quite a few years. I had a plastic scale model shop from 2004 until 2012. Its web site was based on a local server in the shop which I had configured and deployed. The code for the website was also written by me as part of the overall shop POS software. I was also running a few other web sites (for the local scale model clubs and my own computer consultancy) plus our own e-mail server. 

As a result of all this, when we closed the shop and moved house, we needed to keep the web and e-mail servers going so I took on a free Amazon AWS server just until BT did its thing. Since then I have been running the servers from my apartment. Additionally, as part of a computer project, I needed a Riak (NoSQL database). I tried installing it on my iMac but that wouldn't work. It doesn't come as a Windows version, only Linux, so I had to find another way. I found out that Amazon has a Riak build available on its EC2 services so I signed up for a further free one year deal (under a different e-mail address - it helps to be able to create these as you need them).

This left me, I thought, pretty qualified to tackle TMA 01 without a lot of studying. I did my usual - skim the books, read the TMA and back fill what I needed to know. I was OK on Q1 but a little worried over Q2 as I have never run a Java based web server. In the end I worked it all out and put the TMA in with time to spare and both questions spot on for word count.

It was at 22.12 (according to the e-mail) on the 21st - just 4 days after the cut off, that i was told of the availability of the result. Because of my early presentation, I had had nearly two weeks to worry myself down to a bare pass. My wife had gone to bed but I woke here when I cheered at getting 79%. In retrospect, I ought to have done better but it was a level 2 pass, which is OK for me.

"TUTOR'S COMMENTS AND ADVICE TO STUDENT:

This is a very promising start to this demanding module.  This is a high grade two standard.  Well done, David.  You have shown good understanding of many of the concepts from block one.  For the next assignment, link your ideas more clearly to the scenario.  You will find out more about MagaMax (sic).  Look for examples from them to illustrate your argument.  Take note of the important distinction between encoding and encryption." 

That is where I lost my marks. For some reason, I was sloppy in my terminology and used "encoding" instead of "encryption". I know that! Why didn't I notice? Maybe I was thinking of Stargate where Walter gives his job as shouting out "Chevron 1 encoded... Chevron 7 locked".

I have now devoured the first three parts of Block 2 and am OK with what I have read so far. I haven't got involved in pricing up these cloud setups because I have been there, done that. I am concerned that we can see the next TMA but the two vitally important parts aren't being released yet and the forum moderator doesn't seem too keen to tell us when we might get them. 

Is it that I know this stuff or are the parts fairly lightweight? I am getting through each of them in one two hour session. We shall see.

Regarding TM470, nothing is happening yet. I think that my project idea will run - especially as I have no need to show running code. This means that I can do the work in Smalltalk ( as it is a very clear language to read). I now have to wait until January when I get allocated a Tutor.

We have a TMA due on the 17th of this month and then we are supposed to be getting on with Block 2 - The Cloud. However, there has been no release yet of any material for the forthcoming block and rumour has it that the course team are still writing it, which does't surprise me. However, I am slowly losing my buffer. I was three weeks ahead (fortunately a lot of this block is familiar) but that is being cut back now.

Anyway, TMA 01. I am nearly there but I have one piece left that, currently, I can't answer. This is a Java/Web Server code problem that I am not familiar with. It is strange that the marking breakdown doesn't mention any marks for the section that I can't do. I tackled my tutor on this and got, what I think is, a not too helpful response. I asked:

-----
It would appear that there are no marks attached to the following:
"Explain how an authorised user is able to be taken to the widget form page, whilst unauthorised users are directed elsewhere on the website.”
This can’t be correct,can it?
-----
The answer I got back was " The marking for this part is holistic and, so you should consider the connection between this part of the task and that described in the breakdown. If you do everything well, then you can have all the marks "
What am I supposed to make of that?

There is still a lot of unhappiness about regarding the results for TM351. I got a Grade 3 which was a bit of a disappointment but I can live with that. Quite a few people seem to think that their being marked down in the EMA was unfair and are trying to get some answers from the course team and the OU but so far no one is replying. Personally, I can't see the point in wasting time on the past but then I am not trying to get the best grade for my overall degree. If I get a 2.2 (I hope not) that will still be a wonderful achievement, I believe but for others, the final degree grade means the difference between going on to a Masters or not. 

On the subject of a Masters, I would quite like to do that but I live on a tight pension and Student Finance doesn't fund higher degrees for the over '60s - booo.

TM470 remains closed at the moment. I have sent my idea for a project to my current tutor (who also tutors TM470) but he felt that it would need some honing to be a goer. I am a bit concerned because, if I can't do this idea, I don't have any others. We shall see. More later.

Two things have happened this week. Firstly, TM470 opened up to let us look at the documentation so that we can start planning for our projects. Great! Secondly, today, the results came out for TM351. I am a little disappointed as, on the basis of my TMAs, where I scored an average of 75%, I was expecting (hoping) for at least 70% in the EMA, which would give me a level 2 pass. I have passed all of my computer courses with a 2, dropping to a 3 for my two electronics based units, so this would have sat nicely. 

I got 56%! So, I only get a level 3 pass. Booooooooo!!! I thought that I presented a well thought out presentation but obviously not. However, I think that I am lucky as there are an awful lot of people out there reporting results in the mid to low 40s, which just scrapes a level 4. I won't express my opinion of TM351 as a course except to say that, as a first year presentation, it was a bit of a shambles. The two things that I am noticing on the current course is the involvement of a super moderator (Richard Walker - liked by everyone who knows him but new to me) and also the involvement of the course team on the forums as well. This is really great. However, they need to be listening to the vibes regarding TMA01 part2 as the questions seem to be a little bit loose, shall I say. "Describe your understanding of using " is very open. Maybe my understanding is that I don't understand. That would be difficult to put into 360 words and would it get me anywhere - no it wouldn't but it would actually answer the question!

With regard to TM352, I am now reading up on HTTPS security as this is something that I have used before but never actually understood at a reasonable level - installing a certificate and getting HTTPS going is not the same as knowing what and why. Still, it is week 3 and I am reading week 6 in preparation for the TMA which is due on 17th November.

TM470 looks like it is going to be a lot of fun but hard work. The whole thing takes from January to August and finishes with a 10,000 word final report. Wow! It seems that we have to validate our project proposals through our tutor but we don't get our tutor until the course starts. In the meantime, they open up a forum for students to discuss their projects between themselves and hone them. You have to fill in a form which gives the project background to the course writers so that they can allocate a tutor who can actually help. As projects that I have heard of involve using Arduinos to transmit data by light and rewriting the NatWest iPad app, I can see why this would be needed.

My app will combine my interest in US railroad operation with my involvement in OO design, NoSQL databases and web/mobile technology. I can't wait.

Well, the web site opened and we got a glimpse of the future. TM352 has a new, updated, format on the web which is much clearer and accessible. I like the list of forums with unread messages as I am a forum hog, in that I read everything and check very regularly. I post infrequently and often throw a post away when I get too involved in a discussion - especially after 11pm at night. I should stick to the old maxims that I had when last employed - never post after 11pm - never post after wine - never send a "strong" missive until it has been in the outbox for at least 4 hours - and only send it then when you have reconsidered your position!

Now to the course - so far I have enjoyed what I have seen. I was interested that the module text is really keen on Windows but all of the NetBean examples are carried out on a Mac - guess which I use NetBeans installed perfectly, the first time that I tried it. I was a bit upset at using Chrome as it is not my favourite browser but so far the plug-in has worked and I am happy with how it is going. I have rattled through the first real block as it is all about HTTP - TCP/IP etc. and it was only recently that I was building a REST interface from my beloved Smalltalk into my Riak NoSQL database running on Amazon AWS.

As you can guess from the above statement, I expect to be able to manage this course reasonably easily - except for Java which I have studiously ignored for years as, against Smalltalk, it looks hopelessly complicated. However, needs must and so on, so I have completed the first examples without too much trouble and I can't see it getting out of hand so I am not so worried.

I have the web site for TM470 opening in mid-October which will get me progressing on my ideas for my project - which includes NoSQL, AWS, iOS/Android and HTML so it should fit in wonderfully with this course (and TM351, of course).

I have my results for TM351 to come in mid-October as well. I keep wavering from being sure that I have done enough to get a 2 pass to hoping, with fingers crossed, that I get a simple pass for a grade 4. I will keep busy and maybe I won't get into too much of a spin.

Currently, I am busy building a nice 1/24th scale BMW 635CSi from the 1980s which is keeping my mind off the results.

iCMA 7 is based on the units about the Semantic Web. I haven't read these but had a go at the iCMA. I got 77 on my first go so I left it at that. In fact, my maths said I didn't do that well but it appears that there was a problem with Q9 (which I didn't answer) and they had to take it out of the calculation. This bumped my overall % up! Great stuff.

I have the EMA done but I keep re-reading it and tweaking it. I have it out with a couple of "lay" friends - although both are in the computer word neither has real knowledge of what we are doing. I am hoping that they can make some sense of the report and can offer some comments that will make it more readable. Mind you, they have had it for 10 days now and no response so I have a feeling at I am on my own.

In spite of all my worries, I got all of my work done in Python/Pandas so my (and my tutor's) concern over my use of Smalltalk was one of the good old "herring rouges". My investigation of the Hibernation data seemed a bit trivial at the end but then, I am told, these things are like that as we don't know where we are going to end up when we start. The second question, involving both sets of data, came up with a surprising result and one that I didn't expect. I am putting off sending it off but it must go soon or I will ruin it with silly amendments.

That's about all I can say until we have all submitted our EMAs. Fingers crossed. If I have messed this one up then it will kill my enthusiasm for completing my degree after all these years. Mind you, I thought that I had messed up TMA02 and got 77% - in fact I did better in that one than I did in the first so who knows! If you hear my screams you will know. I would think I would scream if I pass as well so that'a not much of a guide.

As they say - Watch this space!

Being a programmer who has used the same development environment since 1990, I have always tried to ignore new developments as being more work than life permits. Hence, I entered this course expecting to have trouble. However, I grasped the basic of Python fairly quickly,read the book on Pandas and thought that I had that licked. Then I met the first iCMA asking me things about databases that I thought I knew but couldn't grasp the course teams view on things - but I got a great mark, much to my surprise. This went on until I hit TMA 01 where I stalled. I turned round to my wife and said - "I have to do this so I am just going to put the time in until it is done." That worked and I got 72%.

I then got to iCMA 45 where the combination of Python/Pandas/MongoDB in the form that they supplied us in the notebooks left me thinking that I couldn't go on. Then I worked out that I only had to get 30% so I cleared that hurdle.

I was OK with Q1 in TMA-2 but Q2 and Q3 seemed to be unobtainable in any decent form. Then I worked out that I only had to "average" 40% on the two TMAs so 8% in TMA 02 would do. Suddenly, this looked doable and off I went. I refer back to my statement earlier about Q2 "I have to do this...". I had to bail out of my third visualisation and started Q3 thinking"I can't do...". Somehow, I have clobbered together sufficient to make it look as though I have put the time in.

I was unhappy with my understanding of the bat data - given everyone else's comments but, inside, I think that I am right. I did ask my tutor for some help but she came back with: "Sorry I can't help with this but if you explain your assumptions in the TMA I'm sure this can be taken into account ". I had assumed that this was going to happen so I submitted the TMA without waiting. With this comment, I rewrote a bit of Q2 to expand on my assumptions and re-submitted.

So, you can see that I have been on a roller coaster but, given my low expectations of TMA 02 (8% needed to pass), I think that I can relax a bit as there is only the EMA to go. The statistics look a bit daunting but we have an explanation as to how to approach the last two iCMAs against the code in the solution notebooks so maybe I can crawl my way through.

I have written this long explanation of my journey through the course which has been mostly downs rather than ups. I think that I will pass - just - but then, at my age, that is all I need to keep going. Amazingly, I have learned some new things - NoSQL databases being the biggie. I have the time for this as I am retired but I have no memories of doing a 60 credit course whilst holding down a job in the City as a trader and coming home to a family of 1 wife and 4 children - but I did do it, twice. I even managed a level 3 course in telecomms - lots of calculus in that one!

So, last word - don't give up now - we are all too close to finishing!

I decided that I had to go back to the MongoDB part as, although I was now conversant with Riak, I didn't know enough about MongoDB to tackle the assignments. In the process, I installed on my Mac (using Brew) and found, to my surprise, that it worked first time! I was then able to play with the code in the "Definitive Guide" book. I then went back to the Notebooks and got confused - again - as it appears that this uses its own MongoDB database. I was expecting it to use the one I installed if it was there listening on the right port. I forgot that the Notebook is running inside Vagrant so couldn't see the other instance. Having messed about like this, I decided to finish off the ICMA - which contains questions that require coding to answer!

I answered all of the usual questions and got 29% - I need 30% in 5 ICMAs so if I could get a few more marks, I could put this to bed and stop worrying about ICMAs for the rest of the course. I went through the coding questions and came to one where they were looking for the month with the least accidents. I guessed a month and found that it was right! 10 marks! I ended up with 51.66% so quickly submitted it and now I am ICMA free.

I have now completed Question 1 of TMA 02 so I have plenty of headroom for the rest of the assignment as it isn't due until 16th June.

To bore you with more of my Riak activity, I have been using my son-in-law's expertise to play with the interface from my Smalltalk code into the database. Riak has an HTTP interface, which is what I am using. It also has a direct socket access which requires converting all the data into hex and so on. It has one advantage in that, once connected, Riak keeps the socket open. This should, in theory, provide a much faster interface. However, I must be doing something wrong because, as we now have the GET operation coded using both HTTP and the Protocol Buffers, I did some timings and found that my HTTP interface was almost twice as fast as the direct socket version. I think that we have to examine what our socket stuff is doing as it should be the other way round.

Lastly, I was having problems using JSON as the data format - the JSON interface that I was using comes from the Squeak world and I had to recode it to run under my VisualAge Smalltalk. In the end, I decided that the idea that Riak is a JSON database is a bit of a misnomer as it will accept anything that you give it. I decided to rework the data formats and save all of my objects in CSV format. I already had all the code to do this as it was CSV based before I started with Riak. Anyway, it is all converted and my software is running perfectly! I can now put the Riak stuff to bed for now and, hopefully, pick it up again when I propose my project at the end of the degree (12 months away).