Weeks 8 and 9

I missed a week again! Aren't I getting slack? Oh well, I shall take a break in typing up Use Case narratives (no, I haven't just started, they are hand written on paper) and try and remember backs to week 8 and Thursday (feels so long ago).

First of all, both weeks the Berwick lecture notes weren't up Wednesday night. And MUSO is always down for maintenance, so I can't check before I leave like I can with other subjects. And I know that this weeks were not up until 10:30, I was in my FIT2012 tute and kept refreshing. This meant I couldn't print them as I have no print credit because I always print at home with my laser printer. :( I really miss having the lecture notes so I can highlight and make notes on the slides, as compared to just copying points off the slides (or feeling like thats what I am doing). At least I had time after FIT2012 to go get White Hot Chocolate from the cafe :)

Week 8's lecture began with going through some points of the assignment, reinforcing the concepts involved with context diagrams, event tables, class diagrams and use case narratives. We then went on to beginning design. The definition for design is "the process of describing, organising and structuring system components". There is 5 major components of design: user interface, network, application, system interface and database. We also looked at the different types of architecture and networks. In the tute we looked at the CFA website's Incident Summary Page (which I personally have bookmarked on my computer, is useful when you live in a high bush fire risk area like I do) and the Webserver search, which was also interesting. We then got work on the assignment, and then I got to leave early (which meant I had more time to get ready for work :))

Week 9 looked at developing system flowcharts, something which I have studied before (ie. four weeks ago in AFW2851) and don't particulary like as I feel they are rather big and cumbersome. It also looked at structure charts and pseudocode, an old friend I've missed (or not. But it has been a while since I've truly used it, would have been year 12 I think). The tutorial was then supposed to be about databases, but we didn't end up doing that and ended up working on our assignments instead, with Grace helping us. I thought I had it under control by this point (just needed to type it up) but she then began pointing out problems and managed to completely confuse me. After going home and thinking about it, then seeing her today means I now have it (I hope) back under control, but it has highlighted even more so one thing about these sort of assignments, and that much of it is based on opinion. How you interpret it is going to be different to the person next to you. It was quite obvious from the discussions that I had that my idea of a country club and how it works (and what was to be included in this system) was different to others. It can make it hard when trying to do what your lecturer/tutor wants or finding out what they expect, but that's life, I suppose. Anyway, I feel that I'm learning from it, and that's what matters!

And I just listened to the episode 5 PODcast. My dad works for Telstra in a similar way in that he's actually employed by IBM Global Services. But I shall not say anything about that here, or Telstra's inability to give us broadband...