M206 - Computing: an object-oriented approach (a Womble's eye view)

M206 is a compulsory course as part of the BSc Hons in IT & Computing, and 2005 is the last year of presentation before it splits into two smaller courses.

At the time of writing, the course is at week 28 but, unfortunately, I am only at week 16. It doesn't take a genius to tell that it's not going well for me.

The course itself is very interesting and I was really enjoying it until work circumstances meant that I couldn't study for 6 weeks and I completely lost the plot. My tutor, Roger Richardson, has been very supportive and a great help but, despite that, I know I'm not going to catch up properly, so the best I can hope for is a bare pass - but at least it's something to aim for, and a pass is a pass after all.

The course has 7 blocks, and also some software-based 'learning books' which are an excellent way of demonstrating and practicing the techniques we were learning. The learning books also contain a lot of useful information not found in the printed text, as well as being the home of the Phrogs.

Block 1 was very easy and introduced the basic principals of object-oriented programming. The TMA was also pretty easy and I got 92% :o)

Block 2 introduced us to the programming language Smalltalk and gave us a chance to try some very basic programming. I really enjoyed

Block 3 introduced us to classes, and how to look at heirarchies and inheritance.

Block 4 was about collections: sets and dictionaries, and arrays and strings. I've not quite finished this block yet but this one has been more of a slog for me than the previous three.

I'll tell you about the rest when I get the work done.