[Year 12 SofDev] Back to BASIC(s)

Fri Jul 2 13:03:34 EST 2010

Hi Guy,

Reading through this thread, I take it you are a fan of the new course?!!
This was one of the things that the SD ones of us on the writing panel felt
strongly about - bringing the programming back into software development.
Having said that - GUI design and construction is still a very valuable
skill and one that does still exist in the 'new' course.  The design of a
strong GUI can eliminate the need to write a ton of fiddly validation code
and also makes it easier for the user to actually use the program the 'right
way'.  I don't think you disagree with me - I get the impression that it was
just the 'balance' between the GUI and the code that was your main concern.

Having said that, it is probably not a common thing in industry to have
programmers creating GUI's as it is a very particular skill (and programmers
tend not to be any good at it!)  However, what we want to give students is
an appreciation of all aspects of SD - and knowing the pros and cons of a
well designed GUI and the effect that this can have on the code is pretty
important.

Cheers,

Adrian

Adrian Janson B.Sc, Dip.Ed, M.Ed
VITTA President

Director of ICT
Melbourne High School, Forrest Hill, South Yarra, Victoria 3141 Australia.
Phone: 03 9826 0711 International: +61 3 9826 0711
Fax: 03 9826 8767 International: +61 3 9826 8767
E-mail: janson.adrian.a at edumail.vic.gov.au

Website:  <http://www.mhs.vic.edu.au/> http://www.mhs.vic.edu.au

Blog:  <http://jansona.edublogs.org/> http://jansona.edublogs.org

-----Original Message-----
From: sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au]
On Behalf Of Guy Flaherty
Sent: Friday, 2 July 2010 10:40 AM
To: sofdev at edulists.com.au
Subject: Re: [Year 12 SofDev] Back to BASIC(s)

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 a!

 ctually 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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