This morning we sat the exam on the Networking block of the Computer Systems module. In contrast to the other blocks in this module, this one has been something of a farce:

• Instead of the 4 lectures mentioned in the course guide, there were only 3.
• The first lecture didn’t cover a lot of stuff mentioned in the course handout. However, it wasn’t made clear whether this was background information or examinable material.
• The first week’s tutorial was ‘sit down and do these questions’ – I don’t recall the lecturer for this block saying anything. Some of the questions needed information from the bit omitted from the first lecture.
• The first week’s ‘practical’ session was taken up with feedback from the previous block’s exam.
• The second week’s tutorial was cancelled – no reason was given.
• The second week’s practical didn’t occur because the lecturer was ill. Because it was due to start at 9am, it’s understandable that no other lecturer could be draft in that day to present it. What’s not understandable is that it wasn’t rearranged for another time.
• The third week’s lecture was crammed with at least 2 lectures’ worth of material – the only material I’ve had any difficulty with in this course. (For the curious, it was subnetting – in particular the differences between classful and classless subnetting, which were not clearly explained: who does subnetting, when do they do it and why do they need to bother?) I struggled with this for a couple of days: it did some damage to my ongoing note-rewriting and revision schedules and to my sleep pattern.
• In the third practical, the lecturer went over DHCP and DNS, topics he’d not covered in lectures even though these were in the course handout. At the end, I asked the lecturer if he might have some time later to go over what I was beginning to understand. (Earlier in the session, he had invited us to ‘please ask – I am here to teach you – or email me’.) He said, in what appeared to be an exasperated tone of voice, ‘we are just teaching you simple stuff – just read the notes, it’s all there, that’s all you need.’ I walked out near to tears.
• Despite having said the 4th lecture wouldn’t occur, he later told us he’d been at the venue in case any of had any questions.
• The lecturer was late for another session (I think this was the 3rd tutorial) by about 30 minutes. By this time, I’d found a few books and online sources which, although slightly at odds with each other, made things clear. Kudos to the author of the online TCP/IP guide!
• The cherry on this cake of shit was today’s exam.
  • We were ready to go into the venue by 8:55 for a 9am start.
  • A cleaner let us in at 9:05 and we waited, without any sign of any staff member, until about 9:15. (The exam was due last 45 minutes and some of my classmates had other lectures at 10am, during which they needed to present final work for that course.)
  • Eventually one of us went to the department office, only to be told that the lecturer was on his way.
  • He arrived about 9:25 and then cheerily said something to the effect that everything was OK.
  • The lecturer in charge of the whole module then arrived and gave a genuine apology for the total breakdown in communication which had caused this delay, for which he took total responsibility.
  • The lecturer for the block then arrived with the exam papers – rather than having already printed the papers and locking them in the department office so that any staff member could have been drafted in to invigilate, he’d needed to print them and had found that at least two printers were out of service.
  • But we weren’t to worry because we would only need 15 minutes to answer the questions. To give him his due, they were pretty simple – mostly parrot-learning rather than any deductive stuff and no questions on the stuff I’d taken hours to get to grips with.

I’m pretty sure I’ve passed this exam but won’t know for sure until Wednesday. I then have to decide whether to take the final exam for the whole module on Friday morning: I’ve already passed the course because my marks from the two previous blocks already exceed the passmark for the module. However, I might want to improve on my mark for this block. (I won’t need to answer the questions on the previous two blocks – we’ve been told ‘You can attempt any section or sections of the exam and we will give you the better of the two marks for each section (i.e the better of the class test or the exam section). As always, it is an overall mark of 50% that gets the pass: you can compensate for a fail in one section by getting a higher mark in another section.’

If I don’t take this full exam, my final assessment for this term will be a full exam on the Database Systems module on Tuesday morning. It will be in the Sighthill campus, at least 45 minutes’ hard cycle from here (and two of the roundabouts on the way are rather, er, exhilarating) at 9:30. We won’t know which room the exam will be held in because the university doesn’t announce venues until an hour before the start of the exam. Sighthill is said to be very hard to navigate, especially if you’ve not been there before, so we are advised to be there about an hour before the start of the exam, so I’ll need to leave for the exam around 7:30. We will get the results of this exam after 19th January.

I’m also now waiting for the mark for the Software Development module – the lecturer saw my program running on Wednesday and appeared to tick all the boxes on his marking sheet. (I was a little disappointed that he didn’t try any invalid data because I’d put a lot of effort into trapping invalid entries.) I hope he likes the copious comments within the program and the detail I put into the written submission.

So I can’t yet update my marks diagram but I’m reasonably confident of having passed 2 modules this term. (Software development was a full module, while Computer Systems and Database Systems were both half-modules.)

The result reported on 8 November is put into perspective by

• someone else getting 100%
• the average score being around 75%.

Bah!

I’m the only person currently studying this course part-time: the others also have a very demanding unit that I will take next year. So I think my mark should be reduced by a third.

Thanks to my hostess and a taught revision session that covered the entire content of the Operating Systems block of the Computer Systems module, I scored 98% in Friday’s exam.

I now have 5·92 of an MSc. You can see graphically how much I’ve achieved – and how far there is to go – here.

Using Siri to talk to a Mac 512K

Pics from Guy Fawkes’ day are here. I’m quite impressed with the results from the camera in my jPhone 4. They are much better than the grainy photos I used to get from my previous jPhone 3GS.

My result for yesterday’s test is 84% – here’s the detailed report.

I finally plucked up the courage to submit my answers to the online database tutorial. I’d been worrying over the final question all week – for previous questions, the system told us how well we’d scored. However, not so for this final question. It turns out the solution I worked out last week was correct, so I have 100% for this piece of work.

So I now have about 6% of an MSc

We sat our class test for Software Development 1 yesterday. This was worth 10% of the module, so approximately 1·111 of my final mark. Assuming I’ve passed, I have now achieved just under 5% of my MSc.

The test was an open-book ‘write a piece of code to solve a problem’ question, to be done in 90 minutes. You can see my code here.

1. The bright blue text is the actual question. I copied it into my program to avoid needing to swap from IDE to the question document. This was partly for simple efficiency, partly for good practice and partly because Windows 7 makes swapping between apps using alt-tab annoying because it flickers up ghost images of things you might be tabbing to and displays options as mini-windows at the bottom of the screen, rather than as a row of icons in the centre of the screen.
2. I then decided my strategy – that’s the bit in teal.
3. I then wrote my pseudocode – that’s the comments in red in the main part of the program – and set about translating that into actual code. (The comments in the methods/subroutines were added in as I wrote the code.) Fortunately, this was an open-book exam and I’d already written bits to check and validate user-entry, then put it into an array, so I just needed to copy it into my program and change the variables’ names to ones more suited to this problem. Despite this short-cut, I had only half an hour left by the time I’d finished writing the data-entry code.

   It took a further 20 minutes to write the data analysis and output code. I spent about 5 minutes testing and fixing the program – It didn’t work perfectly first time.

4. I just had time to write a few comments on extra validation I’d like to include and that I’d achieved a couple of things in methods/subroutines which I’d originally thought would be in the main program. (These are in yellow).

I’m pretty confident I’ve passed – the code has structure, using methods/subroutines; it’s full of comments so you can see how it works and has ideas for improvements. OK, it solves a trivial problem but I finished and tested it in the time allowed while others didn’t and it includes a check that temperatures entered are greater than absolute zero – I don’t think anyone else will have done that. (BAH – I’ve just realised that I omitted that test from the minimum temperature data-entry method!!!)

I’d have liked to test it a bit more. Feel free to download the compiled code and let me know if you find any faults in it.

Mark to be reported as soon as I know it.

Very good to see folk in St Andrews yesterday, and wishing a speedy recovery to . Meanwhile, here is uncut footage of my cycle from Leuchars to Aikmans.

There’s probably no good reason for watching it…

Pleasing result for my first class test

28 marks out of a possible 30, so 93%. (At the end of the exam I was sure I’d passed, but had no hope of a high grade.)

This test gets me through a third of a module, and a module is a third of a trimester’s marks. Each trimester counts represents a third of an MSc (were I studying full-time), so I have achieved one twenth-seventh (3·7%) of my MSc.

Pleasing new toy

A lightweight webcam that mounts on handlebars, helmets, etc. Videoing Edinburgh potholes starts tomorrow.

Where to start? I know I’ve been silent since early August. So what follows is probably far too long-winded!

August

I don’t think I did anything productive in August apart from subscribe to CrashPlan, an online back-up system. (There are two back-up devices in Servants’ Quarters but I fear losing them to theft or fire, and I don’t like carrying all my data with me – this requires a physical device which might be lost or stolen.)

MSc studies

On 5th September, I matriculated into Napier University to start an MSc in Information Systems Development. The first week was full of getting-to-know-Napier activities. In one of these, aimed at mature students, my team won a poster-design competition – the prize was a 2GB memory stick. I hope that’s not my only prize during this course.

I’m officially studying part-time but I find that I need to put in almost a full working week to keep up. I’m currently studying

• A full module on software development – so far, it’s been a from-no-prior-knowledge introduction to programming in Java. It’s based on the lecturer’s ‘Java genius” teach-yourself website and the practical programming is done in the Eclipse IDE.We’ve covered variables, primitive data types, input and output (using the
  JOptionPane system), arithmetic expressions, flow of control, arrays and methods (subroutines). So far, there’s been no mention of object-orientation or any real mention of theory, which I find a little frustrating: I want to understand how and why things work. In fact, concerning the start of any Java program,
  public class MyFirstProgram {

  public static void main (String [ ] args) {

  // actual code for main program

  }
  // code for methods

  }
  the lecturer has said ‘you don’t need to know what public, class, static and args mean yet.’) I do know what a String is and have just been taught what void means, while a little reading around has informed me about the other terms. Still, we’re only 4 weeks into the course.

  The coursework so far has been to do the tutorials on javagenius – no real problem except remembering the vocabulary. For example, is it import.javax.swing; or import.swing.javax;?

  There’s a class test, which will be an open-book programming task, in two weeks’ time. Then the remaining part of the assessment for this module will be a 5-week programming assignment.

  As well as the tutorials, I’ve written a program of my own to calculate body mass indices (BMI) for an arbitrary number of people, then work out how much weight each should gain or lose. It could be much simpler (for example, using a 2-dimensional array rather than three 1-dimensional arrays) and is currently monolithic because we hadn’t been taught about methods when I wrote it. My self-imposed tasks for this week are

  1. to re-write my program using methods
  2. to add some more functionality – calculating the minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation of the BMI results
  3. to allow the user to choose whether to enter data in metric or imperial
  4. to allow the user to enter the names of each person, so that the results are given as ‘Bruce’s BMI is…’, rather than ‘Person 1’s BMI is…’.

  I’d like to be able to format the output – you don’t need to know BMIs to more than one decimal place – and to store results in a file so that a later set of results can be compared with an earlier set of results, so that each person could know how their BMI has changed. However, I’m relatively proud – I wrote my program, it wasn’t a set task and it does what I meant it to do. It has also shown me just how much planning you need to do before you write a single line of code and the addictive joy of late-night coding.

  Despite these lacunae, I’m enjoying this module – the lecturer has a great presentation style, is approachable and takes time in lectures to make sure we all understand – and I’m learning stuff – hooray!

• A half-module on computer systems. This comprises three chunks:
  1. computer architecture: innards of processors and their links to the rest of the hardware (buses and hubs); fetch-decode-execute cycle, interrupts and similar. It’s been fairly basic, again assuming zero prior knowledge, but I’ve learnt or firmed up quite a few concepts, so I’m pretty pleased. We sat the class test yesterday. I’m pretty sure I’ve passed but my exam technique and handwriting leave a lot to be desired!This chunk has been taught by another good lecturer with a slightly dryer style but he’s been very approachable and supportive and I’ve enjoyed this chunk.
  2. operating systems, namely windows and linux.
     Wot no MacOS? I wonder if we’ll be taught that every OS sucks (video). Yes, every OS sucks (canonical list).
  3. computer networking
     I’m looking forward to this. In practice, networking macs has been easy and idiot-proof from the moment I tried to do so. (This is not my experience with PCs!) However, the basis of how it all works is pretty hazy – I’ve read snippets on the OSI model and similar but I want to get to grips with it, and maybe later do a CNAA qualification.
• A half module on database systems.
  The old adage is ‘if you can’t say anything nice, say nothing’. So I’m saying nothing in public.

The rest of the course will be

• Spring 2012 – a module on either more software development or web-enabled business.
• Summer 2012 – nothing officially timetabled, so I will be looking for work experience.
• Autumn 2012 –a module on information systems engineering.
• Spring 2013 – modules on
  • web design and development
  • choice between
    • a group project
    • management of software projects.
      I’ve done some line-management and hated it – I think I’ve been quite good at managing publishing projects where I’ve been in charge and the contributors have all been external I’m not sure about working in a peer relationship with other trainees but, since that’s the way I’ll most likely work in the IT world, the group project seems the less unappealing of the two options.
• Summer 2013 – a dissertation.
  I’m nervous about this – I’ve not done any original writing for ages and my PhD thesis left a lot to be desired. I have a mentor who is studying for a PhD in information visualisation in Napier’s computing department – she’s been a great help not least in that, by promising her that I will do certain things each week, I have a great impetus to do them. Her first degree is in philosophy – she then did a computing MSc at Napier and has now started extending this work into a doctorate.

Until now, I’ve not believed the saying ‘the more you put into something, the more you get out of it’. The more I’ve put into anything at work or at home, the more frustrated I’ve been when it didn’t work or didn’t attain the standards I wanted and took up time I wanted or needed to give to something else. However, I currently believe that this saying does apply to this course and that I will be far more proud of, and will have enjoyed attaining, this qualification than my BSc and PhD.

Whether it will lead to employment in the IT world is unknown – I still have great fondness for educational publishing. However, so long as I end up doing something that is tolerably challenging, doesn’t involve commuting (except by bike within Edinburgh), doesn’t contribute to the meat and pet industries, the military, right-wing politics and capitalism, and me to make a real contribution to people’s lives and keeps a roof over my head, then I’m not that bothered. (Ideally I’d earn enough to keep my hostess too, since she’s well overdue a sabbatical.)

What else has been going on? My hostess is on tour, aiming to speak directly to all of her staff about the future of her organisation. We recently spent a long weekend in Worcester, visiting my parents. My mother is still suffering greatly from having broken her hip in March. There’s a lot of pain as the replacement joints haven’t yet bedded in and she still has great difficulty walking upstairs – driving isn’t really worth considering yet, so she’s housebound unless dad or Ian can take her. I’m going to visit again in a couple of week’s time, mostly for an IT call but also to take them an exercise bike inherited from my hostess. Each time I visit, I feel it’s not long enough and that maybe I’m not doing enough for them.