Edited by David Pennington, Saturday, 4 Mar 2017, 20:12
TM470 TMA 01 - in, done, dusted, finger's crossed. 3,500 words,so a bit over the limit but... This is strange as I have never had a TMA that I could show my tutor and ask his opinion before I submit it. Mind you, this one is only worth 5 marks so not much can really go wrong. That is, unless the tutor doesn't approve of the project. My project didn't raise an eyebrow when I first posted it to the Project preparation forum. Quite a few suggestions got a thumbs down but mine raised a comment about AI rather than an opinion. I got the same response from my tutor, once we finally got to talking. I took TM351 - Data management and analysis - last year and with this year's TM352 - Web, mobile and cloud technologies so any project that included a Riak KV database, a REST based web server/controller and a tablet front end should have been a shoo-in. It was, so I got off to a good start. Mind you, I had some worries as it is all to do with routing US outline freight cars on a model railroad - not the normal stuff of a final year project. However, there is a lot of technology and programming involved plus a pretty serious decision engine in the heart of it so it is going to be fun but time consuming. I did pass it to my tutor and he passed a couple of small comments which I attended to and submitted it.
I spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks working on the interface between my code (written in Instatiations VisualAge Smalltalk - all OO to the core) and the database. The design involves a list of keys to buckets. Each bucket is dedicated to one user and in each bucket are files saved with keys to the main objects. These objects are serialised into JSON from their OO objects. Hence, I had to create some JSON coding and decoding objects and give them a good test. It all fell into place this morning so I am very happy. I will be able to discuss more of this once the TMA is out of the way. In the meantime, an outline of what the project is about is available at my new project web site.
Now, to TM352. I am getting a bit worried here. Am I doing a level 1 course just to get background or am I studying a level 3 technology course? I keep thinking that I might wake up tomorrow having been reading the wrong module course work. Block 1 was OK but dealt with web technologies at a fairly simple level. Block 2 was fun in that we had to bring up a cloud server, give it some load and see it auto start a second server. This third block - well, two books in (and another provided) and we are still chatting (!) about whether people are taking to smart phones and how they use them. There was me thinking that they were going to spend the block teaching us how to code an Android device. It seems that the fourth book covers building a web server for a phone and, finally, the last book covers coding. Hmmm. there was me relying on this course to give me the wherewithal to tackle the tablet front end to my TM470 project. Maybe I will have to look elsewhere, or just deliver a wireframe, which I have already warned my tutor that I might have to do. So, far, a quick peruse of the book and back to TM470 has been the order of the day.
Mind you, they are releasing the course materials on a "just in time" basis so we have no idea what the third TMA or the EMA might contain. This means that we can't plan our study to get the best we can out of it all. Maybe they haven't written it all yet, or maybe it doesn't work and they are running around panicking (nice image! but unlikely).
The 2nd TMA was a bit of a dog's breakfast. The wording is so "airey fairy" that no-one is sure if they are even answering the question. All we get back from the tutors is - there are no wrong answers - we will read it all and discern whether you have provided evidence that you have grasped the course work. Hmm. I quite like clean questions and clean answering schemes. TM351 might have been a pig but at least you could work on the question into the night and hope to be sure that you have answered it. I am not even sure if I read the questions correctly so maybe I didn't answer them. I only have to get1 mark (79 in the first and 1 in the second = average 40 - job done) but I am sure of pretty near 10 for the Open Stack problem.
More from me when I get my results for both TM352 and TM470 TMAs.
Extra, Extra, Extra - I got 71% for TM352, TMA02. Arithmetically, I now don't have to do TMA 03 as I have averaged 50% over three (79+71)/3. Well, maybe I will do it. However, there is a lot of fuss going on about Block 3 book 3 and no sign of the TMA soI have been advising people to hold off on book3 until they see the TMA as what they are struggling with may not even be in there!
TM470 TMA and Tm352 blues:-(
TM470 TMA 01 - in, done, dusted, finger's crossed. 3,500 words,so a bit over the limit but... This is strange as I have never had a TMA that I could show my tutor and ask his opinion before I submit it. Mind you, this one is only worth 5 marks so not much can really go wrong. That is, unless the tutor doesn't approve of the project. My project didn't raise an eyebrow when I first posted it to the Project preparation forum. Quite a few suggestions got a thumbs down but mine raised a comment about AI rather than an opinion. I got the same response from my tutor, once we finally got to talking. I took TM351 - Data management and analysis - last year and with this year's TM352 - Web, mobile and cloud technologies so any project that included a Riak KV database, a REST based web server/controller and a tablet front end should have been a shoo-in. It was, so I got off to a good start. Mind you, I had some worries as it is all to do with routing US outline freight cars on a model railroad - not the normal stuff of a final year project. However, there is a lot of technology and programming involved plus a pretty serious decision engine in the heart of it so it is going to be fun but time consuming. I did pass it to my tutor and he passed a couple of small comments which I attended to and submitted it.
I spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks working on the interface between my code (written in Instatiations VisualAge Smalltalk - all OO to the core) and the database. The design involves a list of keys to buckets. Each bucket is dedicated to one user and in each bucket are files saved with keys to the main objects. These objects are serialised into JSON from their OO objects. Hence, I had to create some JSON coding and decoding objects and give them a good test. It all fell into place this morning so I am very happy. I will be able to discuss more of this once the TMA is out of the way. In the meantime, an outline of what the project is about is available at my new project web site.
Now, to TM352. I am getting a bit worried here. Am I doing a level 1 course just to get background or am I studying a level 3 technology course? I keep thinking that I might wake up tomorrow having been reading the wrong module course work. Block 1 was OK but dealt with web technologies at a fairly simple level. Block 2 was fun in that we had to bring up a cloud server, give it some load and see it auto start a second server. This third block - well, two books in (and another provided) and we are still chatting (!) about whether people are taking to smart phones and how they use them. There was me thinking that they were going to spend the block teaching us how to code an Android device. It seems that the fourth book covers building a web server for a phone and, finally, the last book covers coding. Hmmm. there was me relying on this course to give me the wherewithal to tackle the tablet front end to my TM470 project. Maybe I will have to look elsewhere, or just deliver a wireframe, which I have already warned my tutor that I might have to do. So, far, a quick peruse of the book and back to TM470 has been the order of the day.
Mind you, they are releasing the course materials on a "just in time" basis so we have no idea what the third TMA or the EMA might contain. This means that we can't plan our study to get the best we can out of it all. Maybe they haven't written it all yet, or maybe it doesn't work and they are running around panicking (nice image! but unlikely).
The 2nd TMA was a bit of a dog's breakfast. The wording is so "airey fairy" that no-one is sure if they are even answering the question. All we get back from the tutors is - there are no wrong answers - we will read it all and discern whether you have provided evidence that you have grasped the course work. Hmm. I quite like clean questions and clean answering schemes. TM351 might have been a pig but at least you could work on the question into the night and hope to be sure that you have answered it. I am not even sure if I read the questions correctly so maybe I didn't answer them. I only have to get1 mark (79 in the first and 1 in the second = average 40 - job done) but I am sure of pretty near 10 for the Open Stack problem.
More from me when I get my results for both TM352 and TM470 TMAs.
Extra, Extra, Extra - I got 71% for TM352, TMA02. Arithmetically, I now don't have to do TMA 03 as I have averaged 50% over three (79+71)/3. Well, maybe I will do it. However, there is a lot of fuss going on about Block 3 book 3 and no sign of the TMA soI have been advising people to hold off on book3 until they see the TMA as what they are struggling with may not even be in there!