Exams, exams and oh more exams!!!

Hello All!!

Firstly, I would like to apologise for my inactivity! I've been very very busy, I'll be keeping this blog relatively short. 

I have some exciting things to show you about some PHP work I've been doing however you'll have to wait until my next blog for that!

I've just sat my SDLC methodoly exam, and oh god! the last few days have been absolute hell and a lot of stress due to the wording and style of this exam. it has not been easy for us and nor for gerrard.

I've been up in crewe for the last 3 days revising and stressing for this exam, and finally can I say I've finally completed it and passed! flying colours ;) it wasn't pretty but got through it in the end.

Hope you all have a lovely rest of the week, i'll be going to my work party tomorrow and destress with all the free alcohol ;)

Take care.

P.s Did i mention exams?

Week 9 - DB diagram fixes + Sign off!

Hi Guys,

I'm back with a hectic week at work unfortunately with all the projects, i didn't have time to post a blog last week however we've done it! we've finally received sign off for our wire frames and our Database diagrams.

Unfortunately we've had a few issues on getting an account with gliffy so we've all done some research onto new programmes/software we could use and are now using Lucid Charts.

Please see below our new updated DB diagram.

Tomorrow i have some Word Press Training in the office which should be fun as i've never used it before! should be super interesting and hopefully should start building the website sometime this week or next week. 

Till the next time, see you then 

Week 8 - Updated a new planner, wireframes and user entity diagrams

It's the time again, a new week and a new blog for the things we've been up to together.

Firstly we've had a new Planner put into place with some more cards and had more put information inserted into the cards, see screenshot below. 

This project is now being done as a group (forgot if i put that in my previous blog or not) this will help us work on this project as it's the first time doing something like where we must create a website, test and deploy it.

This is a difficult task however it's not something we can't overcome as a team for this. The last few weeks has also become rather tedious of consistently chasing up for sign off on our Wireframes and user entity diagrams.









Now for the wire frames and User entity diagrams, since my last project which unfortunately i was unable to do for my course we used some of those as templates (potentially in previous blogs)

I personally believe we have a good standard set up for our wire frames for the website however i do feel like once it's built it would look alot better than our initial outline of where things should be on our wire frames.

The Wireframe on the left is currently our login page and the one below will be our Landing page. I'll explain it slightly for our landing page as i feel like it can be a tad confusing at first when looking at it.

The top set of tabs are self explanatory they are tabs which you can click to be linked to another part of the website for contacting us, frequently asked questions etc

the next set of boxes will be a section e.g Word, Excel and so on the logo will be in the box and once hovering you can see all the videos regarding that one application. you're also able to search for videos or an application video in the search bar if you're looking for something specifically and don't want to be searching through all the videos.

Up above is our DB entity relationship diagram, unfortunately we have missed out a password for the user via a change requests but that will be updated soon enough.


This project as had quite a few highs and lows already but hopefully we push on as a team and get this project completed.

See you guys next week

Week 7

The Blogs must go on!

Me, Coral and Pj have come together for a group session for our project, throughout the day we done the following:

• Written and submitted project proposal.
• Drafted project plan.
• Added project plan to teams following the software development lifecycle.
• Coded HTML, CSS and JS for a responsive video player and uploaded the code files to teams.

I've added 2 screenshots below of our proposal and Our project plan and the 3rd one down is our Proposal.

As you can see, this project is going forward smoothly.

See you for the next one!

Week 6 - Citizenship and PHP

This week has been a very strange week, from citizenship to PHP training.

Our project for citizenship has alot of potential to do alot of good for the society and also making alot more people aware that sepsis is a big killer in the UK. Majority of the work for it is done and complete now it's just getting it sent to schools and more.

The rest of the week came to PHP training from Wednesday-Friday.

This was quite important training for us as we need to know how to create/retrieve information from databases. The training was also alot of fun learning how to create forms, functions, operators, loops, strings, Arrays, constants and db connects.

Also doing the 3 days has ignited my first initial passion to learn coding hopefully there's more to come, or my next blog will be about the actual creation of the website

Wireframes and UML Case Design Diagrams

This week, me and the people from the London office have decided and started to create a group project where we will be creating the escalla minis for our company.

The first few meetings was the initial design of creating basic wire frames and UML Case designs, unfortunately i currently don't have a picture of the updated wire frames however on my next blog i'll get it all out on where we are.

The meetings are a joy to have with the team as we're a bunch of jolly people who like to enjoy ourselves so at times we're all throwing in ideas and debating about what would be better and what wouldn't work. I hope we can get this project completed to a high standard.

These meetings should now be reoccurring to get this project underway.

Agile Methodology

Agile Methodology

There are 6 stages to the Agile method, this will be explained below. The overall goal of each Agile method is to adapt, change and deliver working software as quickly as possible, however there are different variations on each methodology but all leading to the same goal. Each teams process flow may vary depending on the specifics project or situation.

The Agile Process Flow

1.      Concept – Projects are envisioned and prioritized

2.      Inception – Team members are identified and set tasks, all funding is put in place and initial environments and requirements are discussed.

3.      Iteration/Construction – The development team works to deliver working software based on iteration requirements and feedback

4.    Release – QA (Quality Assurance) testing, internal and external training, documentation development and final release of the software

5.    Production – On going support of the software

6.    Retirement – End of life activities, including customer notifications and moving onto the next project

Pros

Responding to change - this is considered one of the biggest advantages, agile development practices to bring development team and business to responding to changes. This method doesn’t force a set deadline for a team but must still be done within a certain time limit.

   ·         Customers get solutions to the problems they value most, sooner

   ·         Stakeholders can prioritize things in a progressive manor reflecting actual market conditions at a         given time

   ·         Developers feel valued, since they’re working on things that actually matter and will receive               frequent in-depth feedback from the very people using the product

Faster Review Cycles – The more each review is done for the project and had changes made, the more they’re done the better the quality of the project will be after each one and they’ll pick up on speed.

Greater Flexibility in releasing features – as agile methodologies have so many more reviews it allows greater flexibility with clients, allowing change requests

Cons

Lack of understanding – One of the drawbacks of agile development is that a lot of people might not understand what it means to be agile by making unsupported assumptions, by making it an agile project but not wanting to invest the time, money, or effort to actual educate management or employees about how he principles apply.

Flexibility can lead to Bad Behaviours – Another common problem, leading from a lack of formal training or understanding that can make people blame others due to issues or make dysfunctional choices made by the team.

Lack of Predictability – Agile methodologies can potentially take 12-24 months or potentially longer as there is so set roadwork on when it should be delivered by.

WaterFall Methdologies

Waterfall Methodology

There are 7 stages to the waterfall methodology, see diagram below

Stage 1 – Requirement gathering and documentation

Gathering all possible requirements for a project on what needs to be done, and have a product requirement documents for what each set task needs to be completed before moving onto the next stage.

Stage 2 – System Design

The system will have a design built based on the analysis design of the software architecture, this defines all the schemes, models and rules.

Stage 3 – Implementation

Is the development of the software using small units with functional testing.

Stage 4- Testing

This stage integrates all the work done up until now and would test the entire system for any faults, any issues found make it very difficult to go back and fix any changes.

Step 6 – Delivery /Deployment

Making the product live after all functional and non-functional testing is completed.

Step 7- Maintenance

Fixing issues and releasing new versions via a patch

Pros

1. Using Clear Structure

When compared with other methodologies waterfall focuses on a very clear and set goal. It uses a set of step (Explained above), team members must complete each step before moving onto the next step. If any issues occur during the testing phase projects are not going to be pushed aside as half-finished projects but leave the team with more completed and polished project.

      2.  Determines the end goals early

One of the defining steps of the waterfall is committing to an end product goal. The team should avoid deviating away from that, for small projects where’s the goals are clear this makes your team aware and less likely for getting lost in the details as the project moves forward.

            3. Transfers information well

Waterfall approach is highly methodical, when applied in a software setting, every new step involves a new group of people and though that might not be the case in other companies, they should still aim to document the information throughout whether passing projects off or passing it onto another team member. It’s easier to pick up than other methodologies.

Cons

1.     
                1. Makes changes difficult

Waterfall is based entirely on following a set of steps that keep teams always moving forward. It leaves no room for unexpected changes or revision. if you need to pivot round to fix something you’ll have to put a considerable amount of time and work to find out where to issue occurred which can throw off the entire timeline.

2.   
                2. Excludes the client and/or end user

One of the defining steps of the waterfall is committing to an end product goal. The team should avoid deviating away from that, for small projects where’s the goals are clear this makes your team aware and less likely for getting lost in the details as the project moves forward.

3.     
          3. Transfers information well

Waterfall approach is highly methodical, when applied in a software setting, every new step involves a new group of people and though that might not be the case in other companies, they should still aim to document the information throughout whether passing projects off or passing it onto another team member. It’s easier to pick up than other methodologies.

Week 5 - Methodologies

Week 5 -

This week in training we went through alot of different methodologies and learning all the difference between agile and waterfall, whilst also going through all the pros and cons for each one.

It's been quite an engaging week and generally rather enjoyed it, unfortunately i failed the exam but i believe that the next time i'll take the exam i'll ace it.

There isn't alot i can write on this week as it was very much theory based unless i go into what each methodology is and what it can do.

Personally i believe that agile is the best way forward for any methodology as it allows the customer to get involved with change requests and i believe creates a better product overall whilst waterfall makes it alot more difficult to go back and fix any issues.

I've attached 2 seperate blogs regarding what each method is and what the positives and negatives are.

P.S unfortunately at the beginning of the week my PC crashed while creating these documents and having to redo them was very unfortunate.

Week 4 - SDLC

Week 4 -

This week has been a very difficult and stressful week learning SDLC and software development.

From Monday - Thursday we was doing revision learning all the different types of

Roles of SDLC
SDLC Methods
The Wider Business Context
Business Analysis
Requirement engineering
Design and development.

There isn't much I could show or explain it without going into a lot of depth however we done the test Thursday, and found it difficult due to not knowing half of the questions that came up, they was very ambiguous with wording but all I can do is hope and pray for the best once my results come back next week.

Week 3 - Part 2

Week 3 - Day 2-5

The last few days i've definitely boarded my knowledge on HTML5 and CSS, also the last 2 days on 4+5 i've done some JavaScripting which i found quite interesting as it has alot of potential on what we could do as coders such as hiding,showing, changing content etc but only learning it is one part of the story i do need to practice using all my new skills i've learnt and put it into a website to build.

After i've practiced more javascripting in my own time i am able to implement some of javascript coding into our elearning. This will allow me to create games, scoreboards for future elearning and more.

Unfortunately my PC broke down and i lost my website i coded for screenshots however whilst using the laptop i was doing some testing and the exercises using code academy, w3schools and so on.

Week 3 - Part 1

Week 3 - Day 1

Being back at training, this morning we had a recap of what we done for our html and css basic training, we re made/re edited our websites again to something we enjoy the most. My one being beat boxing i chose to explain what beat boxing is, linking some famous UK beat boxers story and details, and then linking other famous beat boxers at the bottom if people wanted to check them OUT.

After coming back from lunch, we went into talking about our citizenship project. We've all decided to go and do something to do with one of the Global biggest killers being Sepsis, because Escalla works close with the company it would be ideal we do something to do with this company and also spread awareness. I've gone with the plan for me to Create the E-learning course for the module, it'll be a short module with a few slides of interactive learning and stats of sepsis. it will also have things you need to look out for.