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Does SDD suck or what? (1 Viewer)

p4e81

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wow it really seems like every sdd teacher out there (maybe except for Martyno's) are not as good as we'd like them to be at teaching this subject =S

carke said:
i agree SDD does suck and especially wen u gotta try n teach urself ay
not if you're actually intersted in what the course offers. i've just used around 4 or 5 days to revise (or should i say, re-learn...) the whole course and its not that hard. at least, not as hard as i thought it'll be.

btw, if you really want to do well in this subject, enrich your bullsh*tting skills - it helps for the exam =D
 

NovaAesa

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Legham said:
I do it by correspondence on my own without a teacher, and i do about 50% theory and 50% practical.
Hey, I do it on distance ed. as well (through Southern Cross).

I would have to also say that SDD is my fav. subject, although by now I'm completely over VB (everytime I have write anything in it, I have to boot into XP as my main OS is Ubuntu Linux). Python is a much better language to learn IMO.

The theory is the best part. If you're an avid computer user, alot of the theory just comes as "common sense."
 

DaveYoung

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Me and a couple of my friends did it during Year 11, and we're just dropping it now.

It was a terrible subject, and I didn't learn a thing. I'd been trying to learn programming by myself for a while, but I'm not good at thinking logically etc, so I decided to do the course. The teacher did jack all, he just gave us exercises and told us to program stuff in Visual Basic by using the documentation.

I could of frickin' done that without spending $300+ to do the course!

By the end we all nearly failed our prelim because we all stopped doing the work (with one of my friends not doing the work for 2 whole terms...out of 3), it was all good in the end though.

SDD really sucks unless you already know it all. -_-
 
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You guys whom are complaining are nothing but a bunch of whining n00bs.

Software is not all practical, it's not all writing code. You n00bs have no damn clue how to write a proper program.


I've been programming for about 9 years of my life now, when I came into SDD, I have read and re-read dozens upon dozens of books and could program very well in half a dozen languages.

And yet, I cannot believe just how much the course has tough me, and just how useful it was.
Yes, there is a lot of outdated stuff - like diagrams, but just as much of it is still relevant, and the kinds of stuff you are learning, is what you would be using building high-end programs.


Software, just like any subject, is only partly done in school. You are expected to go home and program. You are expected to program at the library during your breaks.

A lot of software is theory, and learning how to best write algorithms, how to best design projects as so forth. And much of what is tought about project design applies to RL.
Just look at phpbb3 development:

http://area51.phpbb.com/statcvs/

phpbb3 is the biggest and best forum software in the world. Just look at how thoroughly they document everything, look at all the cvs features and tools they are using. They have been writing the user documentation for the duration for their 4 year development of the software.


Year 11 is meant to be about practical programming, give you the grounding you need to go further. In year 11, I learned a whole heap of new VB stuff, and made some pretty cool programs.

Year 12 gets more serious, and is meant to be about teaching you the more complex programming methods and techniques, which you will need when making a program of any decent size.


So stop winging and study.
 

Legham

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^I didn't even study and i find the course easy :S Dunno if it's because im my own teacher or something, but its basically all common sense..
 

Legham

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Starcraftmazter said:
I meant the people whom say it's too hard / sucks.
Yeah, i was just emphasizing your point that it's not hard :p
 

justfriedy

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The only reason im doing sdd is 4 the marks and the fact that i enjoy it. theres no way that ill b using any of the stuff i learn in my lifetime. but its prob my best subject cos its so easy. plus we finished the course in the first two terms and hav been doin past papers since so i can recite it all without studying which makes it the ultimate subject during hsc.
 

ajdlinux

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I like programming, I like designing, I can do the theory part and I understand why the theory is important.

That said, I don't think I've come out with any more useful knowledge than when I went in. I've realised the traditional waterfall method of documentation is inefficient, and projects could be done a lot quicker if they were done in the same manner as most open source/free software projects, where roles are less defined and it's a release early + often philosophy.

From the comments here I think it's a teacher thing. Most teachers really aren't qualified to teach this subject, and they make simple, silly and basic mistakes. Without a major project there is no way to put the documentation theory into practice at all, and assessment tasks are too simple and in outdated languages like VB and Pascal.

BTW, could everyone doing SDD by DE post the name of their DEC and teacher here? I'm at Karabar DEC with Janelle Redfern.
 

Legham

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ajdlinux said:
I'm at Karabar DEC with Janelle Redfern.
Omg! Me to :D What did you come? I came 5/11 :/.. coulda done better but i think i stuffed an assessment or two early in the year.. cant remember.
 

ajdlinux

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Can't remember, I think it was 4th or so. Still, I got like 78 in the exam and was around mid-way. I think Karabar tries to scale us down or something by giving easy exams.

The ATs Karabar gives us are really stupid compared to the major projects everyone else does.

There are two Karabar students at my school: if you look through some past emails you'll see myself (Andrew, ajdlinux) and Kyran in the address line.
 

Legham

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Ahh yeah, i see it. Im the liam one. Obviously, seeing as the email address is legham.13 :eek:
 

ajdlinux

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Not using Bcc in mass emails without asking first should be a crime ;) I'd assume any decent SDD teacher would know that.

This year my school is taking 11SDD, but the teacher is also the sole sysadmin, has fibromyalgia, takes two 9/10IST classes, is evil, and isn't great at teaching the subject. At least they do actually seem to do more than we DE students do.

(BTW both Kyran and myself are accelerated, Kyran's 18 and in Year 11, I'm 14 and in Year 10 ;) I got a Band 5 in IPT when I did it in 2004, so I think I should be able to get another Band 5 at least this time around.)
 

FromDeeEast

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lol wtf our whole yr 11 and 12 was 70% programming and 30% learning shit from books. We have a great teacher, and every 1 of our assignments except for the first assignment in prelim is 50% written (data flow diagram, pseudo code ipo chart etc etc) and other 50% is programming based.

both extremely easy
 

dumarab

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It's not supposed to be a programming course. It's supposed to be alll the other stuff in making programs and coding and logic.

the programming in most SDD schools(including myne) is extreemly simple and not entended to teach the language but rather teach the LOGIC of programming. There for teaching programming in general

All programming is the same whether it's PHP VBS or JS
 

fjnpenguin

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i'm finding sdd an interesting subject.. well atleast so far. i hope remains interesting till the end of the HSC course.
 

Mitcho1989

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Starcraftmazter said:
You guys whom are complaining are nothing but a bunch of whining n00bs.

Software is not all practical, it's not all writing code. You n00bs have no damn clue how to write a proper program.


I've been programming for about 9 years of my life now, when I came into SDD, I have read and re-read dozens upon dozens of books and could program very well in half a dozen languages.

And yet, I cannot believe just how much the course has tough me, and just how useful it was.
Yes, there is a lot of outdated stuff - like diagrams, but just as much of it is still relevant, and the kinds of stuff you are learning, is what you would be using building high-end programs.


Software, just like any subject, is only partly done in school. You are expected to go home and program. You are expected to program at the library during your breaks.

A lot of software is theory, and learning how to best write algorithms, how to best design projects as so forth. And much of what is tought about project design applies to RL.
Just look at phpbb3 development:

http://area51.phpbb.com/statcvs/

phpbb3 is the biggest and best forum software in the world. Just look at how thoroughly they document everything, look at all the cvs features and tools they are using. They have been writing the user documentation for the duration for their 4 year development of the software.


Year 11 is meant to be about practical programming, give you the grounding you need to go further. In year 11, I learned a whole heap of new VB stuff, and made some pretty cool programs.

Year 12 gets more serious, and is meant to be about teaching you the more complex programming methods and techniques, which you will need when making a program of any decent size.


So stop winging and study.
hahahahaha. what an outburst. "stop whinging and study"? what are you, our parent? wake up mate.

first theres chris crocker telling people to give britney a break, now its a nerd telling people to give SDD a break!

you probably jack off every time you see something new about how to write programs efficiently
 
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Tomotron

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oh no mitch...dont make the "starcraftmazter" angry...he might take offense to what you've just said and justisfy it to fit his nerdiness. If theres one thing nerds suck at, its the ability to know when other people dont like them. Therefor they should simply shut up and accept the fact that their intelligence has fucked every social aspect of their brain.
 
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Mitcho1989 said:
hahahahaha. what an outburst. "stop whinging and study"? what are you, our parent?
Yes.

Tomotron said:
oh no mitch...dont make the "starcraftmazter" angry...he might take offense to what you've just said and justisfy it to fit his nerdiness. If theres one thing nerds suck at, its the ability to know when other people dont like them. Therefor they should simply shut up and accept the fact that their intelligence has fucked every social aspect of their brain.
 

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