Workshop 8

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

We consider the 3 strengths to be:
• It uses ruby, which is an emerging new language for web development. The first strength, even though very obvious, we feel that it needs to be expressed. The use of ruby as a development language means that for most of us we will be learning something new. Because this is a master class, most of us have already done some web programming class in the past mostly using PHP or Java (I myself have done 4 classes involving the use of Java, and 2 classes with PHP). The use of Ruby instead of the more popular languages means that we are not repeating and re-learning the same thing again in a different environment.
• The workshop is made in a logical sequence. The Ruby on Rails workshop series was made in a logical sequence, for example, it started by giving a simple task of downloading and installing the Ruby on Rails, along with useful hints. And it developed from there on to more advance learning topics. This structure has made it very easy for students to follow the workshop.
• The workshop series included a lot of coding example. For most of us (or for me at least), the easiest way to learn a new programming language is by using examples, long and detailed explanation would not work as effectively as a coding sample and a little explanation on the sample. This is because IT is a very broad subject with many ambiguous technical term, to understand something it is easier to when we see it in practice.

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

I consider the 3 weaknesses to be:
• The division of member in workshop 6 and 7. in workshop 6 and 7 we were put in to the group of developer and manager. This makes the student to focus on 2 group. We think it is much better if it requires us to work in a big group, that it started from the beginning, not only this will enable better communication but also will make it easier for the lecturers to mark each individual contribution to their own group.
• The workshop 5, 6, 7, 8 came out very late in the semester. For half the semester the students does not know anything about other workshop after workshop 4 this created a confusion of whether or not there will be more workshop. And also it wasted our time when the workshop came out after the semester break while the first assignment is due before the semester break, that created a large gap where we do not know what to do, if the workshop have come out earlier, than we could probably start it early and better manage our time.
• The workshop cover just the basic of Ruby. The workshop leave a lot of thing to be desired, it explains the basic and does not go deeply in to the more advanced topics in ruby. However, we realized that 8 workshop is barely enough to go too deep into learning a new programming language from scratch.


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

The most difficult aspects were:
• The most difficult aspect of the Ruby on Rails workshop is the collaboration. From the earlier workshop up to workshop 5 the collaboration is not that difficult, you only need to collaborate on one group consisting of three people at most. After that at workshop 6 and workshop 7 we suddenly got divided into 2 groups of developer and manager team. And everything change, not only you need to still be working in your own group, you also need to collaborate with other group members. And also since there is only 2 group for this tasks, it create a large number of people in one group which in my personal opinion is not effective, and makes it harder to work together.

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

Improvements I would make:
• One of the improvements that we liked to make for the Ruby on Rails workshop is changing it from a Windows based to a Linux based OS platform. I think this will make it more like they have in the industry, because lets face it, almost nobody in the real world uses a windows machine as a Web server platform unless they are running a .NET Website.
• Another improvement is for the workshop to compare the Ruby sample code with another sample code from a more known Web development language such as PHP or JSP, this will make it easier to understand it, at least for the people who have a web programming background.
• Make some sample and show some website that uses Ruby. The workshop should have put more sample on websites that uses Ruby, not only this will show us what are the Ruby capabilities in the real world but also gives us some idea on what to put in our own work that will make it better.

5. Reflect on your experience 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?

We think that Ruby on Rails is an appropriate Web framework to be used. This is because we think that Ruby on Rails would be a widely used Web framework in the industry. And for me personally I like learning new technology and development languages, and Ruby, for me is a new technology that I have never got into before, so it is much better than doing the same old thing with Java or PHP.

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.

The developer’s team do not uses any collaboration tools. However the manager’s team have use the google groups to do their collaboration. They uses the group to communicate with each other and work together. However, they still mostly uses email to do their collaboration, this is because it is easier to use email to send files then using the google groups, and the email can have more specification on who receive what information, which is something that is hard to do using the google groups.

7. Further comments:

All in all, Ruby on Rails workshop series have been a good learning experience for the students, although it is not perfect in any way. However this is a good thing, considering how well this workshop have been, the fact that it can still get better is really a good news for the next batch of students that will be taking this class in the future.