Computing Students

-Trek-

Oh there will be regurgitation al-right just not the good kind.

Opinicus

What are you fearing the most?:D

-Trek-

DB and SAD, haven't looked at a single set of notes since mid term, and its not because I didn't want to, its just keep we getting more and more flippin work and assignments that I don't have time to. Its a flippin joke having those two subjects in the same semester. :mad:

Opinicus

SAD - ugh I absolutely hate doing documentation.

I used to always mix up the two subjects cos we had the same lecturer for both and we would learn SQL in DB and then use it in SAD.

As a side note: I have to pick what my Semester 2 project is going to be by next week. Anyone have any suggestions? I'm leaning towards an Android app cos we've done Java but I'd say everyone is going to go that direction.

siblers

I have 2 projects and 3 exams. Haven't even started my Visual Comm one but Im not overly worried as I don't need very high marks to pass. Have the majority of my web design done but having one or 2 niggly issues with it. IT Apps will be a piece of pish, not too worried about Maths either, programming is the big worry for me. Haven't got a hang of the loops at all, got a CA Tuesday in it so gonna study like a mofo tomorrow and monday and hopefully it will start to kick in.

As for Skyrim, I have Uncharted 3 in front of me still covered in plastic, come the 16th ill be ploughing straight into it along with Skyrim. Only got one exam after Christmas so gonna have a nice break over Christmas. Can't wait. Although I must admit, found the workload prior to midterm more strenious than after midterm.

For SQL in DB is that coding using Acces? Cause I did that before and hated it to bits.

Opinicus

You're probably sick of people telling you this but the only way you're going to come to grips with code is to sit down and write it (I should take my own advice there:D).

If you have any problem in particular that you can't get your head around just pm me.

The semesterisation really crams everything into a short few weeks.

Yeah you learn some SQL in IT Apps using Access but we wrote most of our scripts in second year using notepad and SQLPlus. Same approach that they teach BASIC in first year in a basic editor. You have less 'toys' distracting you from the language.

siblers

Opinicus wrote: »

You're probably sick of people telling you this but the only way you're going to come to grips with code is to sit down and write it (I should take my own advice there:D).

If you have any problem in particular that you can't get your head around just pm me.

Sound . Parts I understand but other parts I struggle with, what I find hardest is knowing when the loops starts and ends and what goes inside each loop and what doesn't. But yeah, I was planning on writing ou the code instead of typing it, gonan need to practice for the final exam anyway

Opinicus

I just meant writing it on a computer but I suppose actually writing it out on paper won't do any harm either. Anyone else find it really odd to actually have written code tests. Fair enough if it was just pseudocode but having to write in the actual syntax of the language is a pain in the arse.

siblers

It'll be things likes chr$(13) etc that will catch me, least when typing code you can keep checking it to see if it runs or not, nothing worse when you are unsure whether you should use a ; or : or if you need a bracket or not etc.

Opinicus

Yeah at least on a PC you can check if it works and maybe spot a flaw in your logic but on a piece of paper it might look perfect but actually have a major flaw.

siblers

Do they take that into A/C when marking? Or do they mark it as if you were on a computer?

Opinicus

I don't think you'd be penalised for leaving out the odd ; or + or () but if you left them out consistently throughout the exam you might be. I think they really just look at whether you have a grasp of the logic and how to control the flow of the program.

siblers

Thank god that programming exam is over with, finishing line is feeling ever closer now.

AntiRip

It was bloody tricky with the return key to exit loop. Got most of the code and correct calculations but couldn't get it to work.

Now to make a start on VC :-)

siblers

Mine was a bit of a shambles, but was expecting it to be much, much worse. Haven't done a tap yet for Vis Comm but gonna start tomorrow, once I ifgure out the layout of my website it shouldn't be too bad.

AntiRip

siblers wrote: »

Mine was a bit of a shambles, but was expecting it to be much, much worse. Haven't done a tap yet for Vis Comm but gonna start tomorrow, once I ifgure out the layout of my website it shouldn't be too bad.

JB has a good marking scheme so even if it's all over the place, we should get marks for any bit of an effort.

Vis Comm is wrecking my head, as you know yourself, not much done in class

siblers

Tell me about it, in class last week I missed out in one small bit in Illustrator, because I missed that bit I pretty much ended up missing everything else. Was frustrating to say the least.

How did you find the marking in web design CA? Seems to have been marked pretty hard.

AntiRip

siblers wrote: »

Tell me about it, in class last week I missed out in one small bit in Illustrator, because I missed that bit I pretty much ended up missing everything else. Was frustrating to say the least.

How did you find the marking in web design CA? Seems to have been marked pretty hard.

Was marked very hard. Mine looked exactly like what was on the sheet and thought I'd get at least 90% but got much lower. It even validated ok apart from the deprivated tags . I found the same with IT Apps. Very hard marking scheme. But sure a pass is a pass i suppose, but would make you wonder if you didn't put in half the effort would you come out the same or what.

siblers

Yeah, in my exam for web design I made 2 mistakes, I misread one of the questions and put a link instead of the mailto: email thingy and the other mistakes was I didn't use ../ for linking folders (was a stupid question to ask considering the folders didn't exist and there was no way to actually test if it you needed ../ or not) . Mine fully validated too and looked exactly as on the screen, was quite disapointed to have gotten 80% . But I guess it doesn't really matter too much once I get the basic pass mark in the final project.

Least for IT Apps, the final exam is properly easy, I only got 50% in my report. No idea where I lost the marks though.

JFlah

siblers wrote: »

Tell me about it, in class last week I missed out in one small bit in Illustrator, because I missed that bit I pretty much ended up missing everything else. Was frustrating to say the least.

How did you find the marking in web design CA? Seems to have been marked pretty hard.

Seriously Vis Comm is degenerating into a module no one cares about , no show again this week! which is a shame because i personally have gotten right into it. Web Design was harsh alright but i reckon they know if u do anything at all for final site u,ll be grand

siblers

Even the lab classes in Vis Comm seem pointless, everything I'm gonna do in the project will be done via online tutorials. Shame as I was looking forward to that module quite a bit. Handouts we get are a pure waste of time.

Opinicus

AntiRip wrote: »

but would make you wonder if you didn't put in half the effort would you come out the same or what.

siblers wrote: »

I only got 50% in my report. No idea where I lost the marks though.

That's something I find myself asking in more than one subject. Twice this year we've submitted Group reports that we were told were really good, the supervisor especially liked what we did with x, y and z, etc, and then you get a mark of ~70%.

Where the **** did the other 30% go?

Some subjects are marked so arbitrarily.

siblers

Worst thing about it is when you don't get the scripts etc back, Im not overly pushed by web design as I did reasonbly well, but a lot of people got low marks and they have no idea why.

-Trek-

I find worse again is when you dont get your ca results before going into a final :mad:

siblers

Antirip or Jflah, you know for the vis comm website, do the pages have to include a personal page including cv/portfolio? Mine is gonna be a travel website so it wouldn't really suit the theme of it.

AntiRip

I don't think so, if it's a personal website then it needs to have home, about me, projects and links/interests page. For a website of your choice i.e travel maybe home page detailing what the site is about, contact page, photos page maybe, that kind of thing

JFlah

yeah i think there is no need for a portfolio page on your site , just make sure you have 4 relevant pages , should be grand out

siblers

Thanks, started using Illustrator at home, it's not the worst to use, although its a bit of a pain making sure you're in the right layer etc. Photoshop on the other hand

JFlah

siblers wrote: »

Thanks, started using Illustrator at home, it's not the worst to use, although its a bit of a pain making sure you're in the right layer etc. Photoshop on the other hand

I really no bothering too much with photoshop , photoshopped to death images are not automaticaly better imo , keep it simple i think

siblers

Yeah, might change a few to black and white and bits like that but I wont be layering different images on top of each other. Just want to do enough to pass.

JFlah

any idea when results of programming CA will be out , am dreading it made a B**ls of it totally , definitely test environment don,t suit me

siblers

Been checking the emails fairly regulary but no sign, probably get em back in the lab class, was gonna check the actual solution but would only end up depressing myself.

JFlah

siblers wrote: »

Been checking the emails fairly regulary but no sign, probably get em back in the lab class, was gonna check the actual solution but would only end up depressing myself.

Likewise not gonna bother until i get result hopefully did ok though 60% ish and i,d be thrilled did well in 1st one so be no pressure on final really

siblers

On the final exam, you know the way we must get 30%, is that 30 out of 70 or 30 out of 100? So we'd have to get at least 21 or so out of 70. Because getting 30 out of 70 mightn't be the easiest thing ever.

-Trek-

AFAIK Its 30% in the final paper (so 30 out of the 100%). Seems like a silly rule, you can pass some modules before sitting the FE so do people not bother turning up or something? what's the motive behind it?

Just on the off chance, has anyone who is reading this, ever sat the final ca in SAD, have any idea what could be asked? asked a couple of times last week and it was like pulling teeth, so pretty much here downing coffee trying to revise an entire module before tomorrow

siblers

Oh god, best of luck with it.

Opinicus

-Trek- wrote: »

Seems like a silly rule, you can pass some modules before sitting the FE so do people not bother turning up or something? what's the motive behind it?

I think it might be to motivate people who do just enough to pass. It can't look very good to the faculty if people are getting high marks in the CA and barely passing the final exam which covers more of the material.

-Trek- wrote: »

Just on the off chance, has anyone who is reading this, ever sat the final ca in SAD, have any idea what could be asked? asked a couple of times last week and it was like pulling teeth, so pretty much here downing coffee trying to revise an entire module before tomorrow

On the SAD CA, I did that module last year but remind me is it a practical exam or theory? For our final CA mark we had to submit a bigass System design of our chosen subject but I definitely remember a sit down CA also. I always mix this up with Databases format wise cos we had the same lecturer for both and we were using SQL in both. They were complimentary modules.

-Trek-

Its the sit down one for that module, we submitted that project last week and it was a pain in the arse is the reason why i'm only now getting a chance to catch up on lecture notes now.

Opinicus

From what I remember there were short questions on the software lifecycle approaches like waterfall, agile, etc, advantages + disadvantages to each approach, etc
Also I think we were given a user story and asked to create the User Requirements, Hierarchy Chart, ER diagram.
We were given like a list of the DFD elements and asked to draw a DFD Level 0, Level 1 and maybe Level 2 for Process X.

Basically if you can do everything for that project you submitted you'll be grand for most of it with a little splash of the theory. Unless it's completely changed around.

Sorry I can't be of more help man but I kind of drifted through that module.

Opinicus

How'd you get on Trek? Had a CA in OOP4 myself which went surprisingly well.:D

-Trek-

There aren't enough levels of s***e to describe how well it went. Glad you had a better day.

Opinicus

I've been there too. I really think that 2nd year is where most of the hard work gets done concept wise. 3rd year so far has been fairly handy although I may live to regret those words!

siblers

Got 72% in my programming exam. Happy days

JFlah

siblers wrote: »

Got 72% in my programming exam. Happy days

73 here stunned thought i did much poorer thrilled the mistakes i thought were huge must have been not so huge , so much less pressure now , Did you see the amount of fails !!!! omg

siblers

Couldn't believe I got 72%, made my week that did. Yeah a lot of fails alright, gonna be the most repeated module for 1st semester by far. The way John explained in the email bot the exam has made me feel fairly confident going into the final exam, having a question based off labsheet 1-2 and another one off labsheet 1-5 is great.

Feeling good about maths too, it's having an example question and solution of every possible question going into the final exam too, those 2 modules were my biggest concern at the start of the semester and i'm fairly comfortable now with them.

Just need to plough on with viss comm and write the 6 page report in web design (which seems beyond pointless).

JFlah

siblers wrote: »

Couldn't believe I got 72%, made my week that did. Yeah a lot of fails alright, gonna be the most repeated module for 1st semester by far. The way John explained in the email bot the exam has made me feel fairly confident going into the final exam, having a question based off labsheet 1-2 and another one off labsheet 1-5 is great.

Feeling good about maths too, it's having an example question and solution of every possible question going into the final exam too, those 2 modules were my biggest concern at the start of the semester and i'm fairly comfortable now with them.

Just need to plough on with viss comm and write the 6 page report in web design (which seems beyond pointless).

um what 6 page report
!!!!!
you only need a short Word report , the 6 page thing is mis leading the 6 page word document is a description of what the assignment is all about ! re read it for yourself no need to go to that much trouble

siblers

Thank christ for that.
Have you much of it done? Im more or less finished but I'm having trouble with it displaying differently depending on screensize, no idea how to set it so that it appears the same no matter the screen.

JFlah

siblers wrote: »

Thank christ for that.
Have you much of it done? Im more or less finished but I'm having trouble with it displaying differently depending on screensize, no idea how to set it so that it appears the same no matter the screen.

same trouble here have the bulk of coding done looks crap but all features are there

AntiRip

Thank God that's LA3L over!

The presentations weren't that bad at all, up and down in 5 minutes. A lot of craic going on.

IT Apps was very handy also, the first CA in word/powerpoint was alot harder and time consuming.

Just the two projects in Web and VC now. Glad it's winding down..

JFlah

AntiRip wrote: »

Thank God that's LA3L over!

The presentations weren't that bad at all, up and down in 5 minutes. A lot of craic going on.

IT Apps was very handy also, the first CA in word/powerpoint was alot harder and time consuming.

Just the two projects in Web and VC now. Glad it's winding down..

Yeah the presentations were pretty fun IT Apps tomorrow going ok at the other stuff , been a busy 12 weeks .