Lecture sequence

Woo hoo! It begins!

This is a record of some real and imagined events that occurred during 427 lecture times.

Lecture 1

Lecture 1 happened, and it established that real lectures wouldn't be happening.

The persuivants assembled and the sacred initiation rites were performed.

Much was made of the unconventional nature of the course, with occasional references to wiki pages including:

• Start here
• About COSC427
• Teaching and learning style
• Wiki users

A threatening stack of books was waved threateningly.

And lo! We became a learning community of peers, and not teacher & students. All peers should now proceed to Account setup and do what they're told. Don't forget to add yourself to Wiki users.

This year, the participants in the course get more choice about how it will run. Specific decisions to be made:

• Keep last years stuff
• How to assess
• Lecture times

We tried to dream up ways in which OO competence might be assessed. Suggestions included:

• Here's a simple design; what's wrong with it?
• Design a solution to this problem...
• Compare these two designs.
• Explain the Liskov Substitution Principle, (or some such thing).
• Model the room

In the dying minutes we tried the last of the above exercises.

Lecture 2

The session began with a sombre moonwalking rehearsal, in memory of Michael Jackson. Few people seem to realise that before becoming the King of Pop, Michael was a famous software engineer. In next week's classes, we will progress to more advanced techniques including single glove wearing and crotch grabbing.

Then, following the advice of Dr Who, "First things first, but not necessarily in that order", we began with the ending and attempted last year's exam. See Exam questions.

Lecture 3 (20/07/09)

• First, Wal tried to show us Ward's Wiki which didn't work. Also, a presentation about Antipatterns was terminated -- or at least shortened -- by Windows shutting down (called updating in MS lingo).
• More exercises on faulty OO designs. This time: The Frogs design.

Lecture 4 (23/07/09)

• Talked about OO gurus especially Alan Kay.
• Should frogs export themselves? - frogs design

Lecture 5 (27/07/09)

• More debate about wether frogs should be able to export themselves (pros and cons).

Contrasting XML and GUI

• Wal explained how MVC works and which design patterns are envolved.

Lecture 6 (30/07/09)

• Big discussions about MVC and the Getter and setter policy with a lot of moving around and changing chairs. There seemed to be some sort of common agreement within the class at the end.
• User:Jason Clutterbuck was drinking green sludge

Lecture 7 (03/08/09)

• Wal explained how to tie shoes correctly: Ian's Shoelace Knot

Lecture 8 (06/08/09)

• A discussion on an aspect of PaulDesignStudy and an extended discussion on the Parse tree design... Results in discussing the decisions made in creating design patterns, Avoid downcasting, Avoid no-op overrides and other topics.

Lecture 9 (10/08/09)

• Wal gives a short introduction to Test Driven Development from COSC122.

Exercise: How to use Flyweight with the Parse tree design.

Lecture 10 (13/08/09)

• State machine design

Lecture 11 (17/08/09)

• Re-explaining the solutions to the State machine design.
• Started working on the Accountability Design.

Lecture 12 (20/08/09)

• More MVC versions explained.

Lecture 13 (07/09/09)

• Chocolate Cake!!!
• Exercising on exams from 2007 and 2008.

Lecture 14 (10/09/09)

• Antipatterns and their importance.
• Conversation about condensation.
• Looking at formulating solutions about the Sorcerers design example, particularly with reference to design patterns.

Lecture 15 (14/09/09)

Design project critics.

Lecture 16 (17/09/09)

More design project critics.

Lecture 17 (21/09/09)

If you throw up on the exam that will give you quite a lot of credit. I'd be delighted by that. --Wal