SOFT 131 01 – Module Introduction
About Me Contact Details Mark Dixon mark.dixon@plymouth.ac.uk 01752 232556 Portland Square Room B316 Availability Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu – School of Computing Communications and Electronics (main campus) Fri – other work (usually off-campus)
Module Aims This module aims to teach you, how to: learn (self-directed) surface learning (memorisation of isolated facts): hacking deep learning (interrelated concepts) includes interacting with others (lecturers, students, …) develop software: fundamental programming concepts (e.g. events, procedures) how to combine these to solve problems use Visual BASIC
Module Admin Lectures and tutorials: start at 5 minutes past the hour, and aim to end at 5 minutes to the hour if no lecturer - wait until 15 minutes past the hour then you may leave Turn mobile phones off. Ask questions or comment at any time Feel free to talk quietly amongst yourselves Material (slides, handouts, etc.) available before session, on: Soft131 web-site (mdixon.soc.plymouth.ac.uk) Lectures: Don’t come in after 15 minutes past the hour.
Module Format The module is delivered as follows: Lecture: 1 hr per week, all groups, Tuesdays 10:05 – 10:55 Tutorials / Practical Session: 2 hr per week Group 3 - Mondays 12:05 – 13:55 (open to all) Group 1 - Tuesdays 13:05 – 14:55 Group 2 - Tuesdays 16:05 – 17:55 Private study (as much as it takes – typically 3 hours/week) 1 to 1 sessions (my office or labs) as needed at your request Teaching Evaluation (timely and specific) Student Perception Questionnaire Continuous Informal Feedback (talk to me)
Schedule (subject to change)
Reading List 1 The following book is recommended reading: Deitel H, & Deitel P (2006) Visual BASIC 2005 How to program. Pearson Education Inc. ISBN 0-13-227958-4
Reading List 2 Additional reading (the following are referred to occasionally, borrow from library): Pressman, R (2000) Software Engineering: a practitioner's approach. 5th edition. McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 0-07-709677-0. Sommerville, I (2001) Software Engineering. 6th edition. Addison-Wesley. ISBN: 0-201-39815-X. Overview of Software Engineering: Chapter 1, especially page 4. Preece, J; Rogers, Y; Sharp, H; Benyon, D; Holland, S; and Carey, T (1994) Human-Computer Interaction. Addison Wesley. ISBN: 0-201-62769-8 Direct Manipulation: Section 13.6, pages 270-272. Interface Design: Chapter 24, pages 487-499. Shneiderman, Ben (1998) Designing the user interface: strategies for effective human-computer interaction. 3rd edition. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-69497-2 004.019 SHN
Student Background Typically wide range of prior experience 10 years programming (professional?) 5 years programming (professional?) 2 years programming (learning?) 1 year programming (learning) no programming Can be difficult to cater for all number of students A B C D E
Attendance Attendance is compulsory and essential to pass This is not a distance learning course portal is supplement (not replacement) for attending lectures and tutorials
Student Feedback feedback form this student: filled in by students handed in with assignment this student: failed (low attendance, low contact with me) did referred work (over summer) passed
Student feedback (zoom)
Last Year Results 39 students 12 failed initially (31%) offered 1 to 1 sessions after assignment 1 all who did this passed * 12 failed initially (31%) large number of non-submissions
Admin – free software Technicians (Babbage 205) can provide you with free copies of (bring your own blank CDs): MS Windows XP Professional (1 CD), includes MS Internet Information Services (term 2) MS Visual Studio 2005 (4 CDs), includes Visual Web Developer 2005 Visual BASIC 2005 Visual C++ 2005
Admin – jobs Computer weekly (jobs in 7 days) 1 Oct 2006 29 Sep 2005 java 3237 (2234) VB 1671 (1614) ASP 1709 (1355) php 551 (215) flash 407 (168) dreamweaver 171 (69) www.cwjobs.co.uk
Admin – jobs
HTML: Elements & Tags Hyper-Text Markup Language text files – edited with notepad tags, e.g. <b> <html> </a> element = start tag + content + end tag bold: <b>This will be in bold</b> italic: <i>This will be in italic</i> work like brackets start/open <b> <i> end/close </b> </i>
HTML: page structure every HTML page has 2 sections: <html> <head> <title>Test</title> </head> <body> <p>This is a test <b>page</b>. </body> </html> head (info) body (content)
HTML: Attributes Some tags need extra information to work: Anchor (hyper-link) element: <a href=“nextpage.htm”>Next Page</a> Image element: <img src=“Beach.jpg”> Embedded object element: <embed src=“Music.mp3”> attribute (page to jump to) attribute (filename of picture to display) attribute (filename of music to play)
Example: Intro page <html> <head> <title>Mark Dixon's web site</title> </head> <body background="BackGround.JPG"> <font size=+3><center><b><p> Mark Dixon's web site</b></center> <font size=+2> <p>Welcome to my web server. Please select from the following list: <ul> <li><a href="./Soft131/Index.htm"> Soft131: Introduction to programming for Multimedia and Internet applications.</a> </ul> </font> </body> </html>
HTML Tags: Reference Lots of info available on-line, e.g.: http://www.willcam.com/cmat/html/crossref.html Short list of tags: <p>: new paragraph <b>: bold text <i>: italic text <a>: anchor (link) to another web page <img>: image/picture (.bmp, .jpg, .gif) <embed>: embedded object (.avi .mpg .wav .mp3)
Visual Studio 2005
Create New Web-site Select Empty web site Browse to U:\ and create folder
Create New Web page
Create New Web Page Select HTML Page Type filename
Visual Studio Design view – see page as it will appear
Visual Studio Source view – see HTML code
View page (Run)
Enable debugging Select Add new Web.config file
Example: My Summer My summer web-page
Tutorial Exercise 1: My Summer LEARNING OBJECTIVE: to understand tags, elements, and attributes, so that you can create your own web-pages using a simple text editor (e.g. notepad) TASK: Create a ‘My Summer’ web page, which describes the highlights of what you did over the summer, including text, pictures, and sound.