SOFT6008 Class 04.1 & 04.2 A

Students worked on extending the call cost calculator example. Many students struggled with the logic, rather than the HTML. I advised them to concentrate on getting the first two plans completed correctly before starting the others.  It's useful to focus on the extra number of minutes, extra number of texts, and extra data.

SOFT6007 Class 03.4 W

We had a rather hurried introduction to forms and students got stuck in and coded one up. 

We we have a more leisurely look at forms in the lecture next week

SOFT6007 Class 03.2 03.3 & 03.4 N

Most students completed the table exercises including those requiring colspan and rowspan.  Students did not finish them should complete them outside of class.

We had a brief look at forms and I gave out a printout with different kinds of inputs. We will look at these more closely in the lecture next week.

I asked students to complete a form exercise. (see below)

SOFT6007 Form Exercise

Code a HTML page with a  form for a computer club

Join page containing a form

• Parent's full name
• Parent's Email
• Child's name
• Age of child (7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15, or 16)
• Tick a box if they are willing to volunteer
• Do they own a laptop computer?
• Do they own a raspberry PI?
• Prove they are not a computer – choose their favourite colour
• Submit and Reset buttons

·         Use http://atlantis.cit.ie/displayvalues.php to verify that your form sends the data from the form to the server

SOFT6007 Class 03.2 & 03.3 W

I asked students to modify the timetables completed last week to account for double classes. This didn't take very long, But a few students didn't do the timetable last week and so had to first catch up.

I asked student to code the exercise we did class on Monday.

Only 6 students turned up to class this morning.

I asked students who were done to take a look at HTML forms. We will be looking at forms next.

In future we will not wait for students to catch up, Students who miss a lecture or practical session will be expected to figure out what happened and catch up in their own time,.

SOFT6008 Class 03.2 & 03.3 B

Most students began work on modifying the call cost calculator. 

Some it here put the finishing touches to the slot machine. 

Please submit the slot machines today. 

SOFT6008 Class 03.4 A

Students worked the slot machine exercise.

SOFT6008 Class 03.3 & 03.4 W

Some students worked on completing the slot machine. Most are done.

Others starting looking at the call cost calculator.

SOFT6008 Assignment Statement Review

Some students in the class are struggling with assignment statements and expressions

An assignment states changes the value of the variable (left of the equals sign) to the value of the expression (on the right if the equals sign)

Suppose the variable
a holds 20 and
b holds 15


Consider the following statement

a = b + 4;

This asks the computer to calculate the value of (b + 4), which is 19, and put it into the variable a.

So after this statement is executed
a holds 19 and
b holds 15

Note that using b in an expression on the right of the equals does not cause be to be altered.

Only the variable on the left of the equals is changed.



x - 20 is an expression
It will evaluate to something depending on the value of x
It does not DO anything. No variables are ever altered by an expression.

y = x - 20
This statement takes whatever is in x, subtracts 20 from it, and puts the answer into y.
x remains unchanged



Shorthand

There are shorthand assignments that can also be used and these are popular with many programmers

x += y is the same as x = x + y
x++ is the same as x = x + 1
x -- is the same as x = x - 1

However you may chose to stick to the long form in order to avoid confusion

SOFT6008 Attendance

Although I don't have a fully up-to-date class list yet, my initial analysis of attendance rates so far gives me cause for concern.

In Week 1 it was 50% and in Week 2 it was 57%.
[When the class list is finalised these figures might go up or down slightly. But not by much.]

It's really important that students come to class. In my opinion its the single most important factor in success in this module.

SOFT6008 Class 03.1 B

I asked students to add money to the slot machine. Most are well on their way.  I expect we will have time on Thursday morning to get that finished.

A set of students had solutions so similar that they would be considered to have infringed the regulations if it were an assignment . I advised them to not work together in future in order to avoid the risks.

SOFT6008 Initialising variables

Code that is in a function inside the head is executed only when the function is called.

Code that is in the head but not in a function is executed once before the page loads. So you can initialise variables this way. But you cannot modify the DOM in there because it doesn't exist yet.

Code that is in the body is executed once as the page is loaded.

So the money variable can be initialised in the body or in the head (outside the function). But it can only be displayed on the page inside the function.

SOFT6008 Class 03.1 B

I asked students to add money to the slot machine. Most have that done, but a few joined the module late or left their previous work at home.

A set of students had solutions so similar that they would be considered to have infringed the regulations if it were an assignment . I advised them to not work together in future in order to avoid the risks.

SOFT6007 Class 03.1

I gave a speech about attendance.

We did a quick review of tables in HTML and then I explained colspan and rowspan.

I gave students an exercise to complete in class in groups.

SOFT6008 Class 03.1 & 03.2 A

I reminded students that it's important to turn up to class.

I asked student to add money to the slot machine. Most completed this, but a few are still catching up.

SOFT6007 Class 02.4 W

I briefly talked about HTML entities.

I explained how tables are specified in HTML and asked students to code their class timetables in HTML

SOFT6007 Tables

This is a video about HTML tables.

For simplicity the image tags in this video don't have their alt width & height tags.

SOFT6007 Class 03.2 & 03.3 & 03.4

03.2
Students worked on getting the nested list exercise finished. This is tricky, but worthwhile.

Students who were completed and had their work checked by me went for a coffee break.

03.3

I talked about ASCII, code pages, and HTML entities.

I asked student who were finished their nested lists to take a look at the tables video.

03.4

We looked at tables. I talked students through sample page 3

I asked student to code their timetables in HTML. Not all finished that today.

SOFT6007 Class 02.2 & 02.3

Students worked on the nested list exercise. That took a bit longer than I expected. This is a tricky exercise, but it illustrates the structure of HTML very well.

Some students missed class before and so I referred them to an online video on lists.

SOFT6007 Lists tutorial

If you missed the class on lists or need a recap this video might help.