Workshop 8

Evaluation and Report

1. List what you consider to be the three strengths of Ruby on Rails workshop series

• Gives a good background introduction into Ruby and Rails and what this application framework can do
  
• MVC architecture pattern and its relevance to developers on how quick and easy an application can be created
• Discovered alot of interesting things RoR has to offer in terms of the framework, and how useful power and useful the language is through the workshops
  

2. List what you consider to be the three weaknesses of Ruby on Rails workshop series:

• student collaboration was encouraged. But what i found was it was quite difficult as a distant student to work collaborative on workshops
• learning a new programming language, the framework, and all the topic covered is quite a lot to learn
• Not enough tutorials, had to find alot of information online, especially issues around setup of software. Should have a FAQs section whereby common things such as installation issues and configuration issues which students come across are kept so that the next students dont run into the same issues.
  

3. List what aspects of Ruby on Rails workshop series that you found to be most difficult.

The thing i found most challenging with the series was getting my head around the coding and framework aspects of ruby and rails. Creating views, models, and controllers was fine but when you have to make changes outside the generic objects, then I felt like i was really lost and on my own then, not really knowing what i was doing.

Also getting all the different applications to work together on my computer was quite a challenge. As i ran into a number of issues with running MySQL and Apache, which i had to do searches on the internet to find fixes for which took quite a bit of time sorting out.

4. List what improvements could be made to the Ruby on Rails workshop series:

• Improve the method of delivery, whereby tutorials are held online so as to create a sense of community and collaboration among distance students
• Instructions were a little difficult to understand sometimes in the workshops, so should try and be concise and clear in what is the expected outcomes.
• Maybe instead of the OTBS, we can build our own type of application
  

5. Reflect on your experiences with the other Web framework used in this subject: Was it effective? How can it be improved? Should other Web frameworks be used as well or instead of Ruby on Rails?

There was use of PHP and mentioning of .NET etc but i didn't really find this as to be as effective. If the reason is to compare frameworks, i believe major frameworks should be chosen to compare and use such as .NET, Spring MVC, RoR.

6. Did the Developer’s or IT managers Team that you joined after workshop 4 have a preference towards using other tools to facilitate collaboration? Comment on the differences between these use of the sub-forum or Interact wiki tools from your experiences in this subject.

There wasn't really any communication, and it never really felt like there was a team aspect to the workshop. I've felt like communication never really happens in alot of the subjects i have undertaken in distance education.

I feel that to get past this maybe online communication and/or tutorials online at a designated time might help to breakdown this communication barriers, and help students to interact more might be an option worth pursuing.

7. Further comments to add?

I found the course material really interesting and it opened up my eyes to e-Systems, and all the parts around it. I hoped to spend more time on RoR as i found this to be quite powerful