Course Introduction MIS 3501 Jeremy Shafer Department of MIS Fox School of Business Temple University

Agenda Our agenda for today: Why MIS? Why this class? Why PHP? The best teacher in the world The structure of this course The strategy for success

Why, why, why?

“Business Systems Analyst” Why MIS? Technology “Business Systems Analyst” Business Samurai Ninja Noble * Bear in mind, that everything I know about ancient Japan I learned from reading “Magic Treehouse” books to my children. So take this analogy with a grain of salt.

Why this class? Our Advisory Board says …. “We want the best of both worlds.” We want self-starters who can tackle any technical problem. We want business savvy, team players. We want programmers. We want self-starting, business savvy, team players that can write code. You say … “I want a good job” or “I want to be CIO” You won’t get that good job based on your good looks and personality. You will be competing with students from other disciplines (e.g. Computer Science, Engineering) for that good job. You should be looking for ways to “get in the door” so that someday you can be CIO. The faculty in this department (myself included) say … We want you to be successful and happy in your career. Learning how to write code is an essential skill that will make you competitive.

Think about it… In order to do business today you need: A web presence A mobile presence A database infrastructure An understanding of networking and security The ability to learn new technologies and adapt quickly In learning to write a web application, you become familiar with each layer of the solution.

Why PHP? Hold on a minute…. You actually learn more than just PHP in this class. You also learn: HTML, CSS, and MySQL. More importantly, you learn how these pieces work together to create a solution. And … if you can do that …. then you can probably acquire any technical skill and apply it. This is something you will need to do over and over again in your professional IT career.

Why PHP? (continued) PHP is “good enough” for … Facebook Amazon E-Bay DropBox Uber Snapchat Wikipedia Wordpress Drupal Etc…. You need to start somewhere. PHP has a massive install base PHP is a mature, well-established language PHP is open source PHP focuses on server side scripting PHP Database Objects can interface with all major RDMS systems (Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB) What is the hardest programming language to learn? The first one. There’s always one more thing to learn! Good alternatives to PHP would be Python, JavaScript / Node.js

The best teacher in the world…

Learning to code is not like this… The teacher tells me the answers I memorize the answers I tell the answers back to the teacher I get a good grade. I win! I move on to the next task

Learning to code is like … SWIMMING RUNNING RIDING A BIKE MARTIAL ARTS JUGGLING PLAYING AN INSTRUMENT

The best teacher in the world… The best teacher in the world is … you. No one else can really teach you. What goes on outside the classroom is more important than what happens inside the classroom. “No use going to class unless you go to the library.” ~ Ray Bradbury

Course Overview MySQL 2 Weeks HTML & CSS 2 Weeks PHP 3 Weeks PDO 2 weeks To do: Organize your code with MVC (1 week) Work with forms (1 week) Use cookies and sessions (1 week) ** This is all in the syllabus. You should really read the syllabus.

Course Overview (continued) More about the syllabus … in the syllabus you will find useful and important information about things like: Course Objectives Textbook and Materials Evaluation and Grading Exams Quizzes Participation Extra Credit (there isn’t any) Curved Grading (there is one curve, applied at the end of the course.) Technical Challenges The MIS Professional Acheivment Point requirement (MIS majors need 200 points!) The expected schedule for the class

All quizzes and exams are “hands on” evaluations of technical skill. This quiz may come as a shock to some of you because I really do expect you to apply skills you have learned outside the classroom. Don’t expect it to get easier after this. Here, some of you will come to me saying “what can I do?” and/or “I am very worried about this class.” HTML Quiz Exam 1 MySQL Quiz Exam 2 Exam 3 Here I will expect you to apply concepts that overlap with MIS2502. This exam may be the first one in your academic career that you fail. It may also be the the first one that you are unable to complete in the allotted time.

Quizzes and Exams (continued) All students must use the lab workstations to complete their quizzes and exams. You will not be allowed to use your own personal equipment for quizzes and exams. Quizzes and exams are open book, open notes, and partially open internet. (Only a limited number of web sites will be available to you during the exam.)

The strategy for success Commit to yourself learning to code outside of the classroom. Be curious. Ask questions. Make the code your own. Do the work I assign you. The exercises and challenges are NOT graded. You experiment and fail many times without penalty. If you can’t figure out a solution on your own, make sure you understand the solution provided. Realistically assess your own comprehension of the material. Set up your own computer outside the classroom so you can do your work at home, on the train, at the beach, etc. etc. Remember, frightened people do stupid things. You can beat tomorrow’s fears by preparing today.

Ready?