Week 8

Hey there cyberspace! What's been happening? week 8 means only one word "AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!" omg it's OMG has a whole new meaning, the exam timetable is out and that means exams are coming and i actually need to know what this subject is all about in just a few short weeks. hopefully i will see you all on the 14th of the sixth at caulfield racecourse level 1 if you are Caulfield students, if not i don't care go rot (u know i really love u though right?). I also read on my beautiful exam timetable that the exam is 3 hours which i forgot about, eek. That means my hand is going to be very sore and I really can't rely on chance to get me through and a little of bit of brilliance on my part (i'm not normally this egotistical (and i don't normaly use so many brackets (that's not true))).

anyways lovers lets get through this week so i can start thinking about the assignment.

What is Design Anyway?

good question! too bad i'm asking myself. Design is where all the parts of the system are defined, organised and structured to fit the analysis. Design is focused on devising a way to solve the problems that are within scope of the system. Before designing you must know what inputs and outputs will come from the process, what parts of the system need designing and finally how is the system's design going to be done? Design converts modelling from analysis to blueprints of contstruction.

Object-Orientated Design

who am i to talk about the orientation of anyone or anything? i have nothing against what ever they do in there on home, just don't bring it in to the development enviroment ok. Now seriously... there are 3 types of database models used in design; relational, OO and hybrid. lets talk about OO, it's really cool cos it resembles the real world, sort of sometimes, maybe. They use UML in OO too which makes it totally happening and cool. enough about OO it's not really that well covered this week.

Design Phase Activities

Intergrate the network: make the application work on the exsisting network unless highly in-effiecient
Application architecture: physical design of system rather than logical design in analysis.
User interfaces: design what the user will see
System interfaces: design a way that systems will interact both inside and outside the organisation.
Integrate the db: make a physical db model and make it work with the rest of the system and provide good access and storage of data.
Prototype of design details: make trail systems to see if they meet standards and see what needs to be changed.
Intergrate the system controls: make the system secure enough so that company information is handled corrcetly.

Development Enviroment

There is like a bazillion development enivroments, so obviously we won't go through all of them, but just the main, software, hardware and network architectures of the main ones.

Single computer: normally a main frame, limitted by the size of that one system.
Clustered: lots of computers work together as one system.

Centralised: System all in one location.
Distrbuted: Systems are spread across locations and computers. Aided by middleware which helps make applications work well across the computers.

Internet: Worldwide connection of computers. Bad securiry, but cheap.
Intranet: Private network normally inside organisation. Normally faster than internet.
Extranet: Private network that can be extended outside org. Rare.

Application: manages both resources and services and requests for resources and services.
Client-Server: Server deals with resources and services. Client deals with requests for resources and services. Has three layers, data (manages data(derr)), business logic (does the logical procedures and what not), view layer(what users see and input in).

and that's it! tune in for week 9 it's hump week. more on what hump week means then.

happy assignmenting.

Week 7

sorry for the lateness of the week 7 blog, it's just as pod said "You probably have 4 assignments due in about the next two hourrs". so no more chit chat i'll get right in to the thick of things.

We are finishing of analysis, it's been a tough fight but we got to keep punching him till we get the K.O.

Priorities

Defining scope just keeps coming up, if it wasn't so important i would critisize this, but it just has to be said! Scope defines the amount of functionality you want to have in the system.
Level of automation: the complexiticy of the tasks to be preformed using computer support.
Scope creep is one of my favorites, i just love thinking of like a sniper's scope creeping along the floor of a dense forest like a sniper would. Or like a really creepy scope, like a scope used by a pirate "argghhh...". anyways we gotta stop the scope from creeping, so you got to make sure you don't try and do anything except the important functions.
Alternatives: pretty straight forward, see from a broad point of view what could fesiable.

Development Enviroment

Hardware, software and network requirements must be understood so that in the design phase all the equipment is ready, and they don't have to go back and re-order things, which could be costly. You have to understand what the needs of the data are, does it need to be on 24/7, how much can you afford? backup? etc. We need to understand the system's requirements and also the limitations are whether it is in budget. Make sure hardware and software are compatible as well as with existing systems, if needed. Must also fit withing strategic hardware plans of the organisation and be deleivered on time.
You must decide what development tools you are going to use and standardise their use.

Implementation

You have to make a decision whether you want to outsource or build the system in-house, build or buy and evaluate the advantages and drawbacks of all possible implementations. Just a little aside the slides have a diagram (left) of a grid of in-house and outsource on the x-axis, yeah that's fine, and build and buy on the y-axis, sounds fine, but you can't really buy in-house, that's never going to happen unless you buy off another department or something really stupid like that. i just think it's stupid buying things off yourself in a diagram that's all. anyways you better figure out what solution fits your system best or you as an employee could be out the door.

Vendors

To contact vendors you need to make a document that tells them what you want, this is a request for a proposal. you need to include all the requirements of the system, how they should submit proposals and how they will be chosen from alternatives.
Once you get responses from the vendors you must then decide which vendor to choose, which is normaly done by an executive committee.

Hope you all have fun with the assignment, i'm probably going to make a post about the assignment as i do it, so look foward to that. yes that's right i haven't started yet, but i will be soon so watch out.

Happy blogging and assignmenting everyone!

Week 6

i try too hard with these blogs according to the winner of blog of the week in week 1. i think that it's just that i'm just too excited about the unit. I mean what other subject do u get to blog in and listen and watch POD's awesome lectures. i just wanted to do a little bit of sucking up before i get in to the deep end this week.

USE CASE MODELLING

Maybe i should just copy stuff out of the lecture slides and pretend that it's my own work...

I learned:
• Use cases
– Diagrams and narratives
• Process descriptions with UML
– Activity diagrams and sequence diagrams
• Domain class models
– The class model in analysis
– How domain models relate to the other models

I particularly like the stick figures because it makes me feel artistic and i can actually draw stick figures with or without fingers.

aparently a couple of paragraphs a week is good enough so this shall be all for this week,

c u l8r