[Informatics] Informatics data structures

[Mark]

Hi Quentin

Oooh. Your reference to "within and across sheets in spreadsheets" made me
think of worksheets, which may possibly be considered a 'structure'. Thanks!

I consider a 'structure' to be a defined and organised collection of more
primitive entities.
 - A record is a defined set of fields.
 - A table is an organised set of records.
 - A VLOOKUP table in Excel is a delimited selection of rows and columns.

With such a definition in mind, it is interesting that Excel does not treat
rows and columns as structures.
It does not recognise the concepts of fields or records, except when groups
of cells are defined in VLOOKUP or HLOOKUP formulae. (Are there others?)

AFAIK there is no spreadsheet function that can do something like
SUM(Column A) or AVERAGE(Row 32). Instead, the range of the relevant cells
must be enumerated, e.g. SUM(A1:Z10).

Happy I am to be contradicted

Yoda Mark

On 5 September 2016 at 14:00, Lydall, Quentin C <
lydall.quentin.c at edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote:

> I am sure that data structures refers to the tables, records and fields in
> RDBMS as you say, Mark, and to rows and columns within and across sheets in
> spreadsheets. The terminology is what we used in commerce and industry as
> analyst programmers.
> Quentin Lydall
> Teacher
>
> 34 Alkara Avenue
> Lara, Victoria 3212
> P: 03 5282 8988 F: 03 5282 818
> M: 0412523007
> E:lydall.quentin.c at edumail.vic.gov.au
> www.larasc.vic.edu.au  <http://www.facebook.com/LaraSecondaryCollege>
>
> From: <informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au> on behalf of Mark <
> mark at vceit.com>
> Reply-To: Year 12 VCE Informatics Teachers' Mailing List <
> informatics at edulists.com.au>
> Date: Monday, 5 September 2016 at 1:47 PM
> To: Year 12 VCE Informatics Teachers' Mailing List <
> informatics at edulists.com.au>
> Subject: [Informatics] Informatics data structures
>
> How now, brown cow,
>
> Info U3O2 KK3 refers to  "data structures relevant to selected software
> tools".
>
> First, I wonder, *who* has 'selected' these tools - the examiner or the
> student?
>
> - If the examiner has selected them, they have forgotten to name them in
> the study design.
> - If the student selects them, how can they be examined, apart from,
> "Select and name a data structure. (1 mark)"
>
> Then I wondered *which* data structures are relevant to Info.
>
> None is named in the study design. Sure, SD gets it easy: it is told to
> cover arrays, records, and associative arrays, but Info has to work it out
> alone.
>
> Are we to interpret the KK as referring to:
>
> - VLOOKUP tables (Excel)
> - tables, records and fields (RDBMS)
>
> - files? But not even CSV is covered in Info and (obviously) scary stuff
> like XML won't apply.
>
> Can anyone think of any other relevant data structures for Informatics?
>
> What if we just teach kids the Expectiminimax Tree, and the Fibonacci Heap
> and hope they can mention them on the exam?
>
> With a friendly moo,
> Mark
>
> --
>
> Mark Kelly
>
> mark at vceit.com
> http://vceit.com
>

-- 

Mark Kelly

mark at vceit.com
http://vceit.com
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