[Year 12 SofDev] SD 2012 post mortem

Tue Nov 20 17:30:14 EST 2012

Hi Andrew, Mark, Maggie, Kent et al,

   Victorian postcodes in use are not contiguous
see http://www.postcodes-australia.com/state-postcodes/vic
   Therefore a range check for used postcodes will not work without an
unwieldy number of selections. A first glance shows the following
missing postcodes 3007, 3009, 3014, 3017 etc
  If anyone is free to go through the other 980 postcodes feel free ...:)
and then we can look at the 8000 series

Enjoy

Kevork

> Hi Andrew.
>
> In my post mortem I didn't bother pointing out that Victoria uses more
> codes that 3000-3999.  We use a few 8000 codes, from memory, but that is
> not an issue for me.
>
> I mainly wanted postcodes to be stored as numbers because (unlike with
> phone numbers) people do arithmetic with postcodes to find neighbouring
> areas for geographical proximity purposes.
>
> The question didn't mention foreign postcodes or leading zeroes, so it
> wasn't a factor.  The Real World (tm) is a lot messier than we have to
> deal
> with in IT exams.
> We work in a sanitised theory sandpit, which simplifies some things, but
> makes other Real World issues a pain (e.g. actual IT industry standards
> like "Acceptance Testing").
>
>
> On 20 November 2012 14:10, Andrew Shortell <shortell at get2me.net> wrote:
>
>> without actually seeing the paper:
>>
>> just on the postcode thing:
>>
>> i note that in general all postcodes are treated as strings because of
>> Northern Territory postcodes (start with a zero) (in Aus and contain
>> letters in canada, england)
>> if we expect students to deal effectively with postcodes, telephone
>> numbers etc then we need to be consistent with how we deal with them.
>>
>> in addition: is this software solution meant to only work in Victoria
>> and
>> have no clients ever ever anywhere else in the world? was there a
>> statement
>> in teh case study saying that it would never ever be used in any other
>> place than victoria?
>>
>> or are we perpetuating the concept of the problem we had with y2k -
>> (e.g.
>> no computer will ever need more than 640K of RAM  or "there will never a
>> be
>> a need for more than 5 computers in the world" etc)
>>
>> Really we should expect students to think beyond the narrow little
>> boundaries of just our state.
>> In addition did the case study mention that there are Victorian
>> postcodes
>> which also start with an 8 ?? Postal addresses .....??
>>
>>
>>
>>   Andrew Shortell
>> Educator
>> CRC Melton
>>
>>
>> shortell at get2me.net (This List)
>> @acsbear8 (twitter)
>> VITTA CoM Member
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 20/11/2012, at 11:33 AM, Kevork KROZIAN
>> <kkrozian at ringwoodsc.vic.edu.au>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi Folks,
>>
>>
>> My comments and Mark’s responses :
>>
>>
>>
>> Section  A
>> 1. Q 4  -  what a program will do surely is important from an ethical
>> point of view especially when much of what a program does can be hidden
>> such as gather additional information from a user’s computer ??
>>
>>
>> That's assuming that the program will do something unethical, which is
>> not
>> hinted at in the stem. <C> on the other hand is certainly relevant. For
>> D
>> to be right, I think you have to inject some unstated and rare
>> conditions.
>>
>>
>>
>> 2. Q 15  - I am not sure about this question.  What is the design aim
>> here
>> ?  To maximise game penetration in the market ?  Run the game on as many
>> mobile phone platforms as possible ? Make the  game as powerful (
>> therefore
>> appealing ) as possible and target faster processor based devices ?
>> Without
>> this information I think this question is not possible to answer
>>
>>
>> It wasn't easy. I used the process of elimination and didn't think its
>> deeper implications through much  :-)
>>
>>
>>
>> 3. Q 16 -  Sadly a 1D array in PHP, Python and Perl can hold different
>> data types . I know the answer “should be” record, but that betrays a
>> lack
>> of awareness of the recommended programming languages on the list and
>> their
>> features.
>>
>>
>> Yes, Maggie has mentioned this also.
>>
>>
>>
>> Section B
>>
>> 1.       Q 1c – a single malware program can be both a worm and spyware
>> by
>> exhibiting features of each ( propagates without human intervention,
>> exploits weaknesses , spreads over a network and gathers user
>> information
>> eg. Key logger that gathers user data and spreads without user
>> intervention.
>>
>> I am not sure if a student can provide anything more specific here.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> The question baffled me - I agree with you. It's an empty question that
>> has already been answered. What were they fishing for, I wonder?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2.       Q 4 and 5 – 9 marks ???    9% of the exam paper on these two
>> questions ?  I guess it is one way to show students are really good as
>> pseudocode or have shown an improvement on pseudocode.
>>
>>
>> I was expecting this to happen eventually.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Section C
>>
>> 1.       Q2. Is the mobile phone interacting with the AQADAS system or
>> is
>> the asthmatic ?  Remember the restaurant . It is the customer who
>> submits
>> orders in the Context Diagram rather than the waiter who is the person
>> using the system to enter orders. The waiter appears in the Use Case.  I
>> would have thought an asthmatic would appear in the Context Diagram.
>>
>>
>> I really pondered over this one after I realised something was missing
>> in
>> my first answer.
>> I read it that the phone provided symptom data to AQADAS, and CASSA
>> provided data to AQADAS, but the DFD does say that the CASSA data is
>> sent
>> to the phone for collation and transmission to AQADAS... which would, as
>> you say, be a data flow from one EE to another.  They indeed might have
>> goofed putting a data flow from CASSA to AQADAS.  Excellent point.  They
>> might say that CASSA provides data to AQADAS and the phone is just an
>> intermediary, but the phone does have to collate the data...  Hmmm.
>> Interesting... I might revisit that question.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2.       Q5. A VPN may be overkill here. An SSL tunnel would be fine and
>> cheaper, easier, less effort wouldn’t it ?  A VPN may need licenses for
>> each concurrent user or could be free for open source VPN software.
>> Setup
>> for a VPN could involve a lot of work here such as compatibility issues
>> with devices and the server it is connecting to.
>>
>>
>> A fair point. I was assuming a cheap VPN software setup, not a hardware
>> solution. In terms of data security it would be good.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 3.       Q 7 – I think we are getting at a Queue data structure here
>> with
>> FIFO and a capacity of 24 x 12 records over 24 hours when a reading is
>> taken every 5 minutes. The case study does refer  to a data store
>> however
>> and I would expect we would probably have a file of records captured as
>> a
>> queue.
>>
>>
>> Possibly, but aren't the date and time stored with each sample? If so, a
>> queue would not be necessary to sequence the samples. I could think up a
>> few answers for this one. I hope the markers are flexible with what they
>> accept.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 4.       Q 8 c -  In selecting the best design I think the ability to
>> review the choices with one look makes Design 1 superior. Clicking
>> dozens
>> of times after an asthma attack on a smaller screen to open a second
>> form
>> would not be neither user friendly nor sensible I would think.
>>
>>
>> That's true, but it's at the expense of 50% more screen space. Which is
>> more important?  Since the uni is selecting and providing the phones,
>> they
>> have the power to choose one that could accommodate design 1.  I agree
>> it's
>> good to see all of the data at once rather than having it hidden in
>> submenus.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 5.       Q 9 – Postcode can be a string as well and do the same
>> comparison
>> operations as an integer can since it is enumerated. I would expect the
>> examiners to accept either intenger or string for Postcode.
>>
>>
>> Is there any benefit in storing it as string?  Integer=2 bytes.
>> String=4.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Kind Regards
>>
>>
>> Kevork
>>
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>
>
> --
> Mark Kelly - kel at mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
> Manager of ICT, Reporting, IT Learning Area
> McKinnon Secondary College, McKinnon Rd, McKinnon 3204, Victoria,
> Australia
> Phone: +613 8520 9085, Fax +613 9578 9253
> VCE IT Lecture Notes: http://vceit.com
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