Completion of the course

1
Unit 10

• Completion of the course
• Revisit the purpose of the course
• Consider what was not covered
• - and your next steps

2
Two targets for the course

• Those looking for fundamental O-O concepts
• The first six units covered this material
• Gave some idea of the benefits and tradeoffs of
  using the model, and why it has evolved this way
• I hope this has been helpful
• Complete beginners to programming
• Toe in the water - Is this for me?
• Aim has been to cover enough of the basics to
  give a flavour, but not to go into any detail
• see if there is any enthusiasm in this way of
  working that could be cultivated
• I'm primarily talking to this group now

3
Learning to program

• If you are somewhat lost with all the different
  concepts
• hang in there!
• it is like this for most learners
• The key is
• are you enjoying it, even though it is sometimes
  baffling?
• In general
• do you enjoy the idea of building things?
• of wrestling with a problem until it is solved?
• of fixing things that aren't working?
• If so, this is probably for you!

4
Teaching vs. Learning

• Programming has never been taught
• Good programmers are almost always self-taught
• they have learned through their own efforts
• probably quite considerable efforts
• they have a passion for exploration and fixing
• This is the only way you will learn, too
• Of course, it can be a frustrating path
• so creating a good environment will help too
• useful books, folk nearby who can advise if
  necessay
• lots of tea and coffee!
• many long spare evenings and weekends
• I hope you now have passion enough vocabulary
• to understand a book or the folk around you!!

5
Learning O-O in particular

• Programming languages all have three parts
• mechanisms to structure code and data
• different in each different language style
• mechanisms to do something - statements
• mechanisms to process data values - expressions
• In O-O, you need to be working with all three
  very quickly
• unlike in other language styles, where the second
  two, or even only the last need be covered
  initially
• The benefits are great however hang in there
• beautiful solutions can be developed
• code can be safely and efficiently reused

6
The artistry in programming

• In the first unit, we looked at aspects of the
  programming discipline
• I hope that perhaps now you can see the artistry
  mentioned there
• the elegance of the different classes
• how they work together
• how pieces can be replace with other pieces
• and from this, perhaps the elegance of all
  engineering
• The artistry comes very much from the
  programmer's own personal creative flair in
  seeing how a problem can be broken down

7
Gaps Fine detail of C

• Fine grammatical detail of C has been largely
  by-passed
• we've looked at pre-written code
• not enough time on the course
• Visual Studio is very helpful in guiding us
• However, just as with spoken languages
• you do need to develop an accurate knowledge of
  the language grammar
• huge increase in your confidence and productivity
  when you know that you are writing (nearly)
  correct code before the system checks it

8
Gaps whole areas of the language

• Concentrated on minimum set of fundamentals found
  in all programs
• Particularly thin on
• Wide range of built-in types
• Further operators and statements
• Arrays strings and their associated operations
• Visibility and scope rules over members locals
• With a good text book, and a grounding in what
  we've covered here
• you'll pick these up

9
Gaps more on problem solving

• Novice programmers often say
• I understand about the language constructs, but I
  can't see how to start solving this new problem
• Down to problem solving skills
• poorly described at the very basic level, few
  good books
• trial and error, brings the necessary skill set
• bear in mind the heuristics from the last lecture
• there is no perfect recipe, no easy rules to
  follow
• only heuristics that sometimes work
• the good problem solver becomes sharper in
  picking the right one early on
• those with lateral thinking skills will do well

10
Methodologies for tackling problems

• Considering a new problem
• never seen it in which case start from scratch
• seen identical problem just reuse solution
• seen similar pick out the similar parts
• Stepwise Refinement / Divide Conquer
• break the problem into pieces, solve each smaller
  piece (maybe by dividing it too), then recombine
  to get the whole
• Various Object Modelling Techniques
• higher level notation and language for describing
  the components that a problem breaks down to
• e.g. UML
• easy to translate into programming language

11
Gaps other application areas

• We've examined only one style of application
  the animation/simulation
• You will need to become familiar with others
• eventually each new problem will fall into a
  style you've seen before makes solving it
  easier
• Other important styles
• Window/Form based programming
• all around us most modern PC applications have
  an interface that used windows/forms
• Text/data processing programs
• often used for introductory programming, but
  boring however, they're essential for some
  problems
• Database/web programming
• require particular skills to connect to the
  database and interrogate it, and to make
  connections via the web

12
Summary

• Well done for making it this far!
• Learning to program is a huge challenge
• I hope your first experience has been productive
• Best of luck with your next steps