Class notes from 1-21-11

The class syllabus is posted at www.cs.unm.edu/~jmk and the professors e-mail is jmk@cd.unm.edu.
No mandatory book is required for this class but and optional book will be posted on the class syllabus.  

Due next Monday is a proposal paragraph describing a possible software design project. The project should be small enough to be completed during the semester with a team of 5 or less students. These paragraphs will be converted into a larger proposal at a future date. The paragraph should provide a brief description of the project and include things like why this development is needed. It is to be submitted via a blog posting and be about a half a page long.

The professor emphasized the need to keep all work backed up during project development. "my hard drive crashed" would not be accepted as a legitimate excuse for failure to complete the project.

Class discussion about possible projects included an i-phone game application, a stamp collection database, and technical service project management program. The use of some sort of database will probably be expected to be included as part of the project.

After class discussion amongst the Los Alamos students included a cooking recipe database and a remotely accessible thermostat. It seems the Los Alamos student programming skills include everything from web page design to assembly level programming. We were not sure how the teams were to be broken out leaving us a bit up in the air as to how to select our proposals. If the Los Alamos students are to work as a team (due to our remote location) that might sway our proposal decisions.