SOFT6008 Functions

In the next class we will look at functions. I put an example with the following function in your dropbox.

function maximus (a,b,c)
{
if ( (a>=b) && (a>=c))
 {
 result = a;
 }
else if (b>=c)
 {
 result = b;
 }
else
 {
 result = c;
 }
return result

}

The function runs once with literal values, and once with user input values. But it doesn't behave like you'd expect. See if you can figure out what's going on.

SOFT6007 ITS1 Class 08

Students worked away coding pages. Some students are still trying to catch up

SOFT6008 Class 08

In today's class we didn't look at anything new. Students used the time to catch up on the exercises. I wanted to pause a little today to give people a chance get on top of things. Some students have yet to get with the program. I don't think the rest of us can wait for them much longer.

Students who had everything done checked that the random numbers weren't skewed. They modified their code to use floor instead of round.

In the next class we will look at functions

"Teaching Naked" video

During the week I recorded the audio for a short video I am making on "Teaching Naked". I had tried to record it at home at the weekend but the house was to noisy.

When I  started recording in my office I couldn't believe just how much noise there was. I couldn't, as you might think, hear the DJ Society doing it's thing 20m away, but I could hear all sorts of ambient noise. My desk is constantly vibrating, but I don't feel or hear it. My computer hums gently. As soon as I turned on the mic I could hear all these hidden sounds.

Audicity, like a lot of audio editing programs, has a fantastic noise reduction feature. You select a sample of "silence" and it analyses the noise. You can then subtract noise with those characteristics from the recording. It only works for structured noise, like a fan, or a hum. It won't work for people passing the the hall for example, or slamming doors. It if so impressive though I suspect I could record something on a plane and it would be fine.

A buddy of mine in Portugal is going to illustrate the video for me, if he has time. If not I'll have to do it myself.

SOFT6007 DCOM1/ITS1 Class 07

We had an in-class exam. But the results won't count towards the final grade. It was just for a reality check.

SOFT6008 Class 07

Students worked away on the various exercises.

Some students need to take a look at the New Orleans example again and really understand it before attempting the various exercises involving random images. Don't forget the discussion we had about randomness. Some students have unwittingly written code that has stacked the dice or deck. Those kinds of things could have gotten you shot in the wild west, if they'd had JavaScript :-)

There is a lot of interesting variety in the code being written to complete the euro change exercise. It's really worth thinking about the logic before writing the code. I've see a lot of code that is more complex than it needs to be. There is no need for nested loops. And if you think about it, what's the maximum number of 50c coins you will display. The solutions involving mod and integer division are clever, but brave.

Beware of intelligent quotes when copying and pasting. They have different ASCII values from regular double quotes and will break your code.

SOFT6007 DCOM1 no move on the cards

I looked into moving our Friday afternoon class to Tuesday evening, but there are no labs available at that time.

SOFT6007 COM1 Class 07

We had an in-class exam. But it was just for students to find out how they are doing. The results will not form part of the final grade.

SOFT6008 Plans

On Monday we will not cover any new material. Students have plenty of exercises to do and plenty code to to write.

SOFT6007

On Monday we will have an in-class exam on everything we're done so far. But there won't be any marks going for it.

SOFT6001 Class 05 DCOM1 Lab

Students made several pages and link them together. The pages included the nested list exercise and a page with an image. Most students also coded their timetables using a table

SOFT6007 DCOM1/ITS1 Class 06

We looked at tables and used colspan and rowspan

SOFT6007 COM1 Class 06

We looked at tables and used colspan and rowspan

Hogeschool van Amsterdam

I have some brochures from Hogeschool van Amsterdam for anyone interested in going there on Erasmus. Classes are taught in English.

SOFT6008 Class 06

We transacted our first bit of business with the DOM in order to do a rollover.

Connected Blog to Google+

I connected my blog and my Google+ account today. Now I can write a blog post as usual and share it with the relevant people in Google+. That's handy because I was more or less putting the same information in both. I want to keep both on the go at the same time. I want to build the audience for one, but keep the audience for the old. I'll be curious to see which students prefer In G+ students see only what's relevant to them. On the blog they can see everything, unless they click on the appropriate label.

SOFT6007 Targets

By the end of this week students should have a website with a few pages linked to each other, including one page with the nested list example, and one page with an image.

If that's not happening for you, you need to let me know so we can get you sorted.

SOFT6007 COM1 Class 05 Lab A

Students coded the nested list exercise and made some pages link to each other.

Some students used to class to catch up on things they had missed. It's important to get the fundamentals sorted before moving on.

SOFT6007 COM1 Class 05 Lab B

Students coded the nested list exercise and made some pages link to each other.

Some students used to class to catch up on things they had missed. It's important to get the fundamentals sorted before moving on.

SOFT6007 ITS1 Class 05 Lab

We looked at how to link between pages.

Students coded example from previous classes.

A number of students used the time to catch up on missed classes. Students should catch up this week.