And So The End Is Near...
Writing this when I should really be revising. The exam is tomorrow
(the twenty-first) and I am reasonably confident of a good mark.
Famous last words I'm sure. I haven't revised much, being too preoccupied
with M360 but I remain blithely optimistic. To celebrate the end
of the course, I made a little something...
which may amuse you if you are sick like me.
 Old
Stuff
Bah! I only took this course because I wanted to learn to be a
serious computer geek and what am I doing? teaching f***ing frogs
to f***ing barn dance that's what!
I got better marks than expected/deserved for TMA4. I was even
told that my solution for one of the questions was "more elegant"
than the proper answer, even though I hadn't (ahem!) quite managed
to, er, um, make it work... I used modulo maths for question
3(iv) but (duh!) used a // in place of \\. There were some other
bugs too and, if I hadn't run out of debugging time, I prolly coulda
made it work... Is it very obvious that I'm making excuses for myself?
Approaching the stage two group work project deadline. I'm slightly
concerned that everyone but me seems to have used a ton of tests,
whereas I only have four. I'm still buggered if I can see the need
for all these surplus experiments... fingers crossed, though...
maybe I'm completely wrong!
OOP's Upside Your Head
For the benefit of anyone who's thinking of taking M206 next year,
go for it! Smalltalk is about the easiest introduction to programming
you're likely to meet. It isn't particularly commercially useful,
as far as I can tell (although I have seen a few job ads that have
asked for smalltalk skills), but it does everything neatly and without
fuss so I'm enjoying getting to grips with it. It's like the latin
that underlies the modern languages of today!
I'm mirroring Bruce Eckel's free e-books
on this site now, including several titles on C++ and Java. Some
or all of them might be interesting to you if you haven't already
got enough work to do! While you're at it, why not subscribe to
the object-oriented
programming newsletter.
 Top
Tips for New M206 Students
I've lost a few marks this year for accidentally using capitals
in the wrong places. that's the trouble with high-end word-processors:
they tend to stop you making mistakes, even when the mistakes aren't
mistakes. In this case, the root of the problem was MS Word's autocorrect
feature, which was "correcting" my capitalisation as I
pasted the text into it from a LearningWorks window.
If you're starting out in M206, it's a good idea to pull down the
Tools menu, open the "Autocorrect..." dialog and turn
off the feature by unticking the appropriate box (See screenshot).
You'll be glad you did!
Linux and M206
As far as I can tell, M206 learningworks software does not work
well with WINE or Crossover Office. If you are a Linux user and
considering taking this course, you should def consider your options
here as you may end up stuck. You could try OpenOU
for any advice from other users but at the time of writing there
is none.
M206 on First Class
Apart from the course confs which I'm sure you've already found,
there is a social conference for former M206 students. For the benefit
of anyone who hasn't found it, it can be found by clicking the OU
Shield>OU Students' Association>OUSA Signpost. Click on "Name"
at the top of the list to get them into alphabetical order and then
scroll down to look for "OUSA The Phrog Pharm". The FAQ
is kinda handy since it contains archived posts including an M206
glossary, a magazine article and even a customised .fc file to add
frog noises and icons to your M206 conferences!
M206 Course Related Info
Most of the OU Official M206 pages have evaporated now... Roger Beaumont's Day-School
Notes : : : ADBH
Web M206 Page : : : Pauline
Curtis' M206 Page (A very useful and resource-packed site!)
: : : Catzwhiskerz
(by Barbara McCormack)
Smalltalk
Why Smalltalk? : : :
Since you can't get Learningworks anywhere on the web (as far as
I can see!) any future students who want a sneak preview of the
smalltalk learning environment might like to wander over to Cincom
and get a copy of Viusualworks
instead. It's a closely related program BTW, If anyone does find
a website or FTP server where Learningworks is still available,
please, please let me know!
: : : Squeak : : : Smalltalk.org
: : : Smalltalk
Tutorial : : : History
of Smalltalk : : : Swiss
man have much free smalltalk thing : : : Neometron
(makers - once upon a time - of LearningWorks!)
: : : Adele
Goldberg article : : :
Alan Kay Lecture (Needs realplayer) ::: More
Alan Kay Streaming Media goodness: : : All about OU
LearningWorks : : : Reflective
programming in Smalltalk
Software Development/Modelling
UML : : : Functional
Requirements and Use-Cases : : : Umbrello
UML Modeller
C++
OOP
and C++ : : : JOOP
: : : Tutorial
: : : Virtual
Tutorial
General Object Oriented Stuff
Sun
OOP concepts : : : Why
OOP is like writing a trashy western novel : : : Object
Oriented Page : : : OOP
Oversold (Some guy who is not impressed!) : : : How
OOP Started : : : Survey
of Object Oriented Languages : : : OOP
Powerpoint slides : : : Journal
of Object Technology : : : Designing
Reusable Classes
Frogs
Frogs (This
is actually the learning book from M206 TMA01!)
M206 Jokes
Programmers'
drinking song : : : Explanation
of different programming languages : : : A
whole host of crap jokes : : : BTW, How many computer programmers
does it take to change a lightbulb? None: that's a hardware problem.
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