Well, I've uploaded my PROP project. Compilation an execution instructions are included in the tar.gz. The program is written in Java, so it works in all OS platforms.
Enjoy playing with it :D: Restaurant Project
Learning a programming language is easier than it seems. But if you claim to learn any language without spending lot of time, you need a good scheduling and a little organization.
It's logical, a building can't start from the roof: We need a solid base where we can begin to build a house; However, the methods I learnt from my University 3 years ago were not the best method to begin.
I begin learning Java, a full Object Oriented programming language. Omg, that was horrible for me! OO languages are great, fantastic, but are horribly for beginners, especially if you've never programmed before. In OO, there are lots of concepts that at first, they may be "innocuous" (Inheritance, Polymorph, Encapsulation...).
When I began, teacher spoke to us about unknown words: class??? method??? (I understood the word method like 'methodology', not 'function'!), and bad explanations about that... I was really disappointed and I lose my heart.
- If you really like programming, and you want to do great things, be patient, keep going, the world was not made in seven days!
- If you are a really beginner, please, don't start with a full oriented programming language like Java. Begin with something simpler, like C or PHP, where you don't need to apply the object oriented concepts (reserve memory space with news, pointers, class, attributes... more complex concepts for a beginner).
- Read! Read! Read! Be used to read! For your mother, read! For you, read lots of manuals and tutorials until you understand the concepts! You can find them around de WWW!
All programming languages have little examples for testing. The most popular and simplest example in all programming languages is "Hello World" (or "Goodbye, cruel World" xD). This example will give you a simple and basic concept about how the language works.
- Practice, practice a lot, it's the most effective way to learn a programming language!
Doing this, you will get some notions about language syntax, but it's pretty harder to be a good programmer. Making programs requires lot of logic, a heavy and solid mental structure (where I must put a while? Where I must put a condition?). For me, acquiring this mentality required more than 1 year (omg! you could say). Well, be a good programmer requires a lot of time, a lot of reading and a lot of acknowledge (practice, too) for acquire this mentality. But there are strategies to accomplish this.
Programs can be crazy for you: you open a program, and usually, you will ask yourself: How has this program been made? You must divide the problem in more little parts: Which operations are hidden? Which data must be shown? Which parts is this part of the program composed? Here we enter in a basic and, maybe, the most important word in programming world:
Abstraction, in simple words, means "Divide a problem in less difficult problems that you can solve easily".
EDIT 20:34
Read tutorials and manuals about how to be a great programmer (It's easy, the only requirement is motivation).
My counsels:
- Begin programming with a language like PHP or C (in his single form, without touching OO).
- After that, try to do any interesting program, or be practiced.
- After that, try an object orientate language, like C++ or Java. Learn the meaning of inheritance, polymorph, software changeability... You can find lots of manuals about these languages, but if you want to understand the benefits from Object Oriented languages (I can't live without them) read Software Engineering books, and understand the design patterns.
In the future, I will enter harder with this theme through my project (probably), but I love Software Engineering and sure I will write lots of articles about this world.
Well, as I said previously, I need to learn for Moodle Project some web design languages. 2 of them are HTML and CSS. I am reading a book called
I've discovered some interesting things:
- Learning these languages does not require lot of time. I've learned the basis and I could practice the acknowledge I've acquired in no more than 2 days.
- I deduce the most part of HTML tags are equals (except for, maybe, html, head and body tags), the only difference among them is that they have been built with the language in with different styles (Please, anyone correct me if I've made any enormous mistake and I'm wrong).
- Making your webpages pretty is easy if you use CSS. You can create new tags for HTML using CSS declaring them with an style, or the existing tags (body, ul, table... for numbering something else) you can define for them new styles and have a new look&feel for them in your webpage (you can use also in CSS inheritance, as Java!).
I will follow reading this book. You can download it easily from emule. I'm also reading a book called
Ohhh, I was at point to forget it, I am writing this post entirely in HTML language, not using the editor as I made :D
I put there some screenshots I have made in ArchLinux with KDEmod, for people feels curiosity about this distribution and how is his look&feel. Enjoy them, I will make some explanations in every screenshot:
Here we have my Desktop clear. From top left corner to top right corner:
- Kmenu, Home, Show Desktop, an applet for docking apps for fast accessing, Desktop switcher, Taskbar, a CPU/Memory/Swap monitor, and opened apps, clock and close session/shutdown button. Preety, right? :D
Also we can see the links in the desktop. Don't you like the icon Style? :D
Here, the same Desktop with Konqueror opened and Yakuake dropped down. Yakuake is a very beautiful Console for me, and look at konqueror: windows colors fit with background without any problems, and the icon theme Tango is the most beautiful icon theme I've ever seen.
Well, this is my Desktop, and also, the default theme of ArchLinux's KDEmod. Try it!!! You will not be disappointed with him!
I hope you'll try it and you will email me saying you've successfully installed it :D
Today I'm reading how I can build a Moodle module in a Wiki Page of Moodle. Along all day, I will edit this post with some comments and conclusions about what I have read.
Edit at 12:13
This morning I have been preparing the environment for begin to develop Moodle as soon as possible.
My favorite IDE for programming is eclipse (well, I now it seems a Switzerland knife xD, but it's very useful and runs perfectly on my Arch and it is easily pluggable), so I was looking about how I can prepare a web environment in eclipse.
Looking for on the Moodle Wiki I have found a concrete page explains perfectly what I have to do to work with eclipse for developing Moodle: Wiki page on Moodle site for Eclipse.
Now, following the previous instructions, my Eclipse is now ready to use (it was a quite hard but finally I have got it).
Also, for this afternoon, I have downloaded a template for programming modules for Moodle. This is the link I have followed to read about module development and download the module template: Link.
Cada dos por tres, tengo que ir a Madrid (por asuntos que no vienen al cuento). Como joven y estudiante que soy, no trabajo, no tengo ingresos y no puedo permitirme grandes lujos por ello. Antes ir a Madrid, con Altaria, tardaba 4-5 horas, al precio de 55 € con tarifa web (un 60% de descuento respecto al precio original). Iba a la página web de RENFE, realizaba allí la compra, me molestaba en buscar la tarifa web puesto que no ponían visiblemente qué tarifas ni ofertas habían para un tren concreto (porque el que algo quiere algo le cuesta), y yo, sin mucha dificultad, obtenía mi billete tarifa web al precio antes mencionado. Hasta aquí guay, yo era feliz.
Ahora, con la entrada del AVE y el cambio de página web, me resulta imposible poder viajar a Madrid como joven:
Ahora en la página web muestran visiblemente, para todos los trenes, qué ofertas son las que quedan (Estrella, Web...), con lo cual la gente que no deseaba esforzarse a buscar la oferta ahora encuentra tarifa web con muchísima facilidad, y vuelan, y cuando quieres darte cuenta, no tienes tarifa web en las fechas que a ti te gustaría.
Los precios... SE HAN DUPLICADO! Un viaje en Altaria me costaba 55€ con 60% de descuento y 4 horas de viaje. En AVE, 3.5 horas de viaje hasta Madrid (algunos 2.5 pero pocos), con 60% de descuento de la tarifa web (si es que tienes muchísima suerte de haberla encontrado por lo antes mencionado), 96€ ir y volver de Madrid!!!!!!!! Ustedes, despiadados señores de RENFE, se piensan que somos tontos? Creen que a mi, media hora de mi vida en tren cuesta 96-55 = 41€??? Y eso con tarifa web!! Porque sin ella, la diferencia absoluta se dispara. Perdonen que se lo diga con estas formas, pero ustedes se pinchan.
Siempre decían: “Ohhh el AVE, es el futuro!!”, qué prisas por tener AVE ehhh? Cuando pensaba en AVE, creía que iban a mantener algunos Altarias, o almenos el tren Estrella hacia Madrid, que seria lo más lógico y lo mejor para los jóvenes. Ahora, la única forma de poder viajar en tren hasta Madrid es con AVE, ya no hay ni Altarias/Alvias ni Estrella. Tienes que pagar un ojo de la cara por el AVE.
Cuando muestran fotos del AVE, en las noticias ponen reportajes del AVE, etc... Siempre, lo único que se ven sentados como clientes son tipos trajeados con corbatas... EJECUTIVOS!!! Ustedes se piensan que nosotros tenemos los sueldazos de esa gente? Porque me temo que a un chaval como yo de 20 años y estudiante no lo habrán todavía fotografiado en el AVE a menos que le paguen el viaje sus papis.
Así pues, me veo obligado a tener que renunciar a ustedes y sus servicios de Larga Distancia y a tomar otras alternativas como el bus. Son 8 horas de viaje hasta Madrid (no las 2 y media del AVE ni las 4-5 del Alvia), pero cuestan 48€, y eso me lo puedo permitir. No comprendo porque han tenido que quitar de forma tan drástica esos trenes que en un pasado me iban tan bien y abusar de su propio monopolio.
Espero que con este escrito mi profunda desolación, decepción y descontento con ustedes haya quedado patente, y haberles dejado totalmente claro que han perdido a un cliente potencial de AVE.
Atentamente,
David, usuario de RENFE como miles de españoles
I am grateful to announce I begin the Final Career Project Today, 2th Jun 2008. I've gone to meet my project's Teacher, Marc Alier, for agree the last things, offer to me the way I want to follow for my project, and getting an idea about what I must do in this project.
I chose to be a Moodle developer. He also offered me to participate in mobile phone projects. Moodle is a great e-learning and free software project. The whole free software world is really interesting. An opportunity like this is hardly ever offered to all people.
Maybe the first part of the project is the easiest. I have the whole month of Jun to learn some required acknowledge:
- I have to look in the Moodle wiki and learn how I can develop a module for Moodle and integrate it to the moodle platform (I have done that before in a PHP-Nuke, I hope it will not be harder...)
- Having a blog to use it as a logbook to write my experiences and changes. I will use this blog for that task.
- Installing Firebug, a Mozilla Firefox extension used for debugging web.
- Managing Subversion (when I did ADA in the university, Analysis and Design of Algorithms, I learned to use it).
- And the most huge part, learning the development web languages: PHP, HTML, Javascript, CSS, XHTML and XML. For a programmer like me, it would not be a really difficult task, but it requires some time, especially learning and understanding their syntax.
Jordi Piguillem, and official Moodle developer, will be "my master".
I will begin soon to learn all this tasks. I have installed Firebug and next step will be reading the moodle Wiki (I have moodle installed in my machine as localhost).
Ohhh, I also asked for making the whole project (memory and documentation in English). I can :D, a great opportunity to learn a lot.
It promises to be a really exciting project. Let's see it!
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