[Year 12 SofDev] Back to BASIC(s)

Fri Jul 2 10:39:57 EST 2010

Robert,

HID is important to understand, but is it is not usually done by programmers as they are rarely any good at it. A program GUI designed by a programmer is usually a terrible one, and I would prefer to have a good programmer work on the program and let a good User Interface specialist work on that part. Not always possible I know, but one can hope.

The thing that I find dislike is that the GUI is only a small part of computer programming, and yet gets far too much attention for me. I can, and do, write a lot of code that never appears in any GUI application, and yet is a core part of a system. With the way applications are moving to being web based, GUI also seems to be losing  some of its importance as well. I simply feel students know and like GUI stuff, as they use it all the time, but I want to show them what is behind it that makes up most of the programming for applications they are using without them even realising it. Say for example you have a nice GUI to configure you wireless settings on your mobile. The GUI is just a shell and doesn't really do anything except pass options and data to the actual utility that talks to the hardware, creates the connection and provides the monitoring of it. I find students often feel the GUI part is doing all this, and don't realise they can delve a lot deeper to see what is actually happening underneath. The level of abstraction for programs these days does make teaching programming a bit more difficult than before. Companies making every effort to 'simplify' their products, especially be heavily restricting functionality, means students get little opportunity to use software in a more 'complex' form.

I have broken down tasks this year using Object Oriented programming in a simple form, and this seems to have gone over well with my year 12 students. They really like the way code can be 'reused' and how objects share that code for consistency, making their jobs a bit simpler. On the plus side, if they get a handle on this sufficiently, joining the classes they make into signal and slot type GUI apps is not too much extra for them to learn. I just always wish they could do without the GUI and not have to worry about individual language conventions that are pretty much inherent in GUI development. Python for example has the following GUI toolkits I have to choose from: Tk, PyQt, PyGtk, WxWidgets, Java and more I think. None of these are written in python, they are just wrappers around other stuff. Yet python is an approved language?! I think some of the other languages are similar too. Ruby, PHP, Perl all don't have native GUI toolkits unless I am mistaken. So I really have to teach students two languages at least to make GUI apps, the programming language and the toolkit's 'language'.

I suppose my opinion is simply that programming != GUI, so why does the study design force it on us. If teachers want to teacher students to make GUI apps, outstanding, but why do we all have to do that. Why can't I teach my students how to create a network monitoring solution that only communicates with users by automatic email messages, for example. Grumble grumble ....

Guy

>>> "Timmer-Arends"  30/06/10 5:10 PM >>>
I was going to second Laurie's suggestion but now I guess I'll have to third
Guy and Laurie's suggestions for all the same reasons. I presented it to my
Y10s but didn't make the decison to go this way until part way through the
semester, so opted for  Portable Python because it meant that I could run it
from a network folder (techs didn't have to put it onto the image). A big
plus I found with this implementation of Python was the IDE - it meant
students could focus on programming and not have to worry about separate
editors, interpreters etc.

Can I just say in defence of the GUI approach in SD (but not the Access
part) that it brings two benefits: having students think about human
interface design; and more importantly, allowing students to break a task
down into obvious chunks - it encourages/scaffolds a kind of top-down
approach which I think is educationally useful.

Regards
Robert T-A
Brighton SC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Guy Flaherty" 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 2:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] Back to BASIC(s)

>I second Laurie's suggestion of going with Python. I use it in Year 12 and
>in a Year 10 IT Elective and it is very good for teaching programming
>basics. Last year I taught game programming with it to Year 10 students and
>they managed to get a fair bit out of it, with a good number electing to do
>Software Development this year.
>
> Python actually lends itself to teaching programming because of the way
> you are 'forced' to write more readable code and by being a fairly
> consistent language. If you do manage to have any students who become
> adapt at programming in it, you can easily extend it in almost any
> direction as well, due to its high level of real world application use.
>
> One of my pet peeves with Software Development is that we actually have to
> create a GUI application. I am not sure why this is specified, as I would
> prefer to concentrate on the actually programming and less on event-based
> actions that can be a lot like making a form in Access. I would like to
> actually concentrate on things like network applications and client/server
> stuff instead of GUI layouts. I find the students actually start to
> appreciate that there is more to computers and programming once you stop
> doing everything in a GUI. It is just hard work to convince them that it
> will be interesting and fun if they give it a go!
>
> Good luck with your course,
>
> Guy Flaherty
> Xavier College
>
>
>>>> Laurie Savage  30/06/10 1:46 PM >>>
> Nice approach Mark; have you thought about Python? I've been playing
> around
> with it with a good year 9 class and they seem to get it. My reasoning is
> that simple Pyhton scripts read very much like structured English so as
> long as
> the kid can grasp the logic the syntax more or less follows and OO and GUI
> programming can follow in the same language.
>
> Laurie Savage
> Pascoe Vale Girls College
>
> Just recently, on Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 01:07:23PM +1000  in fact, Mark
> KELLY mentioned:
>> Hi All.
>>
>> While I haven't had an SD class for a while (low enrolments and all), I
>> will
>> be taking a year 10 IT elective in the coming semester which is sort of a
>> SD
>> precursor.
>>
>> Having been annoyed in the past by programming introductions that
>> stressed
>> the GUI at the expense of 'real' programming (e.g. the spent most of
>> their
>> time manipulating object properties and never discovered variables,
>> arrays,
>> loops and logic) I have decided to go back to basics... literally.
>>
>> To force the kids to focus on fundamentals I wanted to start with good
>> ol'
>> QuickBASIC that has no GUI at all.  Alas, it proved impossible to get it
>> to
>> run under Win7.  That's when I found QB64 at http://www.qb64.net.
>>
>> This is a nice rendition of reverse engineering QB that will work happily
>> in
>> a Win7 64 bit environment.  It will be good to get the kiddies away from
>> frills and back to the meat-and-vegies of programming.  Only then will I
>> get
>> them into GUI and OOP.
>>
>> Enjoy the hols
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> -- 
>> Mark Kelly
>> Manager - Information Systems
>> McKinnon Secondary College
>> McKinnon Rd McKinnon 3204, Victoria, Australia
>> Direct line / Voicemail: 8520 9085
>> School Phone +613 8520 9000
>> School Fax +613 9578 9253
>> kel at mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
>>
>> Webmaster - http://www.mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
>> IT Lecture notes: http://vceit.com
>> Moderator: IT Applications Mailing List
>>
>> Korma: the philosophy that what you get out of a curry depends on what
>> you
>> put into it.
>
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>
> -- 
> Laurie Savage
> ====================================================================
> Markbook/Moodle Coordinator::Pascoe Vale Girls College::03 9306 2544
> ====================================================================
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"This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the Network Manager at Xavier College. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Xavier College. Whilst every attempt has been made to ensure material in this email message is free from computer viruses or other defects, the attached files are provided, and may only be used, on the basis that the user assumes all responsibility for the use of the material transmitted."