Software Development Life Cycle!

Tough Tuesday,

I am starting to talk about the night before today, therefore I shall continue that. I spent a few hours last night completing A1T3 as promised in the previous blog. I proof read all tasks and made sure I have included anything missing, which means this morning I was successfully able to email A1 to "Jovial John" for submission.

This morning was chilly, but I guess the starter warmed me up big time! (heh, puns). The starter for today was to get a user's name and address on a program, which is exceptionally easy for everybody at this stage of the epic course. However, we also had to "write this information to a .txt file", this was harder as it covers inputs and outputs of the 'file' function. Up until today, I had never heard of that particular function/feature before so as a consequence I looked at the PowerPoint tutorials. Once again, I got extremely stuck but then "Jovial John" explained it thoroughly, which lead to my understanding  of it. Amazingly and professionally, "Jovial John" used the 'clock' function and it overall improved my knowledge about it as he walked us through his reasonings. However, this does not mean I am able to use it casually as I am a slightly advanced Small Basic programmer. However, due to the fact that I have room for lots of improvements, I will definitely learn and practice on this software whenever I have time throughout the half-term/Halloween holiday.

File Input/Output Function

After the starter task, "Jovial John" recapped once more about data types. We did an exercise where we had to fill in specific data types, as well as giving an example and provide a suitable variable name. This was an example for a marathon organisation. Although I have submitted my work, I believe this is just another refreshment to allow me to remember more intellect.

Moving on within this tough but challenging day, "Jovial John" discussed with the class about A2T1. Specifically this was about software development life cycle (SDLC) models such as the Waterfall Model and Agile Model. Each SDLC's has its own strengths and weaknesses and also follows a series of steps to create a program. The only difference between the mentioned two is that they both create programs uniquely. After so, we continued until lunch to either complete A1 or start A2. I started A2.

After lunch, "Jovial John" talked about the rest of the second assignment. This was about the quality of code and readability. He nicely presented this using an useful Prezi and as a result, I bullet-pointed and made a list of them.

Quality of Code:

• Reliable and robust,
• Usability,
• Portability,
• Maintainability,
• Efficiency

Readability:

• Indentation,
• Comments,
• Syntax/Structure (Highlighting) - IDE benefit,
• White Spacing,
• Good Variable Names + Camel Case.

In the last part of the day, I spent my time starting A2T1, I found it hard to start off as I was worried about the use of space, but in the end I managed to get my head around and start normally. I will at least try to complete the first task within the next few days as all the important information is in my head. However, I will edit and add more to each tasks until the deadline reaches, this is so I do not miss anything crucial out.

One last important thing! I'd like to thank "Jovial John" as I am very grateful for his teachings. Although this unit is the hardest yet, I believe his way of teaching makes me able to understand and learn. Although the funny banter meme's may seem a little offensive (hopefully not), I am actually very thankful deep down and I am in debt to him! =)

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