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and this is what ive been saying in and out of class, the only way i think this could remotely be a success is if homework and class notes were posted on here forcing people to log into the wiki

Re: Discussion of the Wiki by stummejstummej, 17 Apr 2009 16:50

Personally, I'd like to hear your opinions Doc. Feedback is probably the most helpful part of the Wiki …

Re: Discussion of the Wiki by lastjlastj, 16 Apr 2009 20:17

Yes, but a pair of jack@$$es who
a) earned some participation points
b) said constructive things
c) showed thought in their constructive things

(and those are in increasing order of importance as far as I am concerned).

My question to you guys. Do you want me to RESPOND to your points, or are you content simply making them and knowing that I have seen and considered them?

Re: Discussion of the Wiki by jbschaferjbschafer, 16 Apr 2009 17:25

Good Discussion,

I will say, I like the wiki because I would rather just listen in class, so it helps me with partcipation points. I would prefer the wiki over a written report of how OOP changed the world. However, I agree when programming or when studying for tests it doesn't work well. Its too bad we didn't use it for more discussions like this before now. I think we should take a test on the wiki and after the deadline whatever is correct we all get extra credit points and then the correct answers would be posted for studying - since were throwing ideas around.

I hope somebody else posts too. Otherwise were just a pair of jack@$$es - swearing in the wiki helps too.

Re: Discussion of the Wiki by larrysavagolarrysavago, 16 Apr 2009 16:38

Hey all. Since Schafer said at the beginning of the semester that this was the "rookie year" for the wiki, I thought it might be nice to give him some feed back on it in case he decides to use it again in future class.

He told us in class that we are not using the wiki "as much as we need to be." Here are a few reasons that I have thought of that might explain why:
1. The vocabulary page really is an unreliable resource. If there is nobody that is going through it to check the accuracy of the content in it, then it is a safer option to either read the book or Google the term in question.
2. When needing help on homework, the Wiki takes too long. By the time we have gotten to the point to where we are asking questions about how to do an assignment, the deadline is near enough that we do not have time to wait around for somebody to post a response on the Wiki. It is much faster to either use Google for help or go into Dr. Schafer's office.
3. Not everybody has used a Wiki before, and the setup process might have been awkward enough to turn people off of it. This hypothesis is entirely from personal experience. I remember trying to setup my account, and by the time I had gotten to a screen that appeared to be even vaguely like a profile screen, I wasn't even sure what I had done. Then "subscribing" to this particular Wiki somehow turned out to be unnecessarily difficult, and then I never even got a confirmation notification when I was added to the site.
4. Somehow, the Wiki feels more like an extra credit assignment than something that is vital to our learning. Again, this one is personal opinion, but unlike class participation, I don't feel like the Wiki has really helped me to gain a better understanding of the content from class. It is a great resource when it comes to studying/reviewing for a test, though.

So now that I have listed a few possible problems with the Wiki, it is my duty to offer a few ways to possibly improve upon it for future semesters (otherwise I would just be whining).
1. Have the student-uploaded content be checked regularly for correctness. It would be nice to know for sure that the content we are looking at as a study aid is correct.
2. Possibly tie some of the homework assignments into the Wiki. Part of the reason that I think it got largely ignored this year was because people just forgot about it. If they occasionally needed to log onto the Wiki for a homework assignment, that would be a great way to keep the idea in their heads.
3. It would have been nice to have a step-by-step walk-through on how to sign up for the class Wiki (kind of like Dr. O'Kane posted for 'how to install Cygwin').
4. Assign a problem where the entire class posts code to the Wiki to make one big program. This would probably be difficult and might not work in the long run, but I think it would be fun to try. So many of the programs that we wrote this year had multiple classes, and this might be a good experience as to how a program is written in real life. Dr. Schafer, this would also be an interesting way to introduce the concept of cohesion, coupling, and flexibility of code.

I really hope somebody else posts a few comments on how to improve the Wiki or maybe just some concerns/problems they had with it. Otherwise I'm going to feel like a bit of a jack@$$ ripping on it by myself …

Discussion of the Wiki by lastjlastj, 16 Apr 2009 04:55

… to make this an abstract class you would chage
"public class" to "abstract class" and write atleast one method as…

abstract void abstractMethod();

and then you extend the abstract class?? and…

define the abstract method?

public void abstractMethod()
{
// type stuff here!
}

Is this right for abstract classes?

Let me have at this one.
The interface contains the behavior that a class is required
to implement when the class implements the interface.
The interface would look about how it does above.
public interface SomeInterface
{
//Methods required in implementation
public void aMethod(int somenum);
public void anotherMethod(boolean isit);

}

and the class that implements would need to look a little like this

public class SomeClass implements SomeInterface
{
//Methods required in implementation
public void aMethod(int somenum)
{
//implementation goes here
}
public void anotherMethod(boolean isit)
{
//implementation goes here
}

}

So no one is going to point out the flaws in this post???

The concept of interface is that we have a set of behavior that an
implementing class is supposed to provide, after which we can use all
such classes and their objects similarly as we know that the behavior is
available.
For example, if we have a Drawable interface that defines a method
draw(), then if our Player class and our Ball class both implement the
interface, we can add them to an array of Drawable and just send the
array to the paint method to draw.

The keyword interface is used like
interface SomeInterface
{
void aMethod();

}

and when implemented, something like

class SomeClass implements SomeInterface
{
void aMethod();

}

Interface- concept and keyword by alsalamalsalam, 03 Apr 2009 16:16

In Java the String class has a method called matches that is very helpful when checking if an expression is valid. The method takes a String as a parameter which is the regular expression. Examples of regular expressions can be found in the Java api by clicking on the regular expression link of the method summary for matches in the String class.

So for example in regex square brackets '[]' are used to group together different letters and there are also other operators like '+' which means the expression has to appear once or more or '*' which means the expression can appear zero or more times.

Also if you are using JGrasp, under the Tools tab is a regular expression tester that allows you to test regex. I suggest trying a few things like "(ab)" "(a*b)" "[ab]" "[ab]*".

Enjoy! Let me know what you think.

Hasan came in today and asked if you guys could use the forum. I said sure, but that it didn't seem to be working yet. I THINK I now have it working.

Testing the forum by jbschaferjbschafer, 05 Feb 2009 16:19
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