Aucklug Meeting - Tuesday 1 May 2012

[Glen Ogilvie]

Hi Everyone,

The next AuckLUG meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 1 May, 2012.

Currently, we don't have anyone with time to run a presentation, so the format of the
next meeting will be an "Interesting projects" meeting, open to everyone.

If you have an interesting Linux related project you would like to share, please bring
along a few slides on it, or something to talk about. Time slots per speaker will be
limited to 10 - 20 minutes.

To kick things off, Glen will present a 15 minute slot on the NetStora MS2000, which is
a Linux based home NAS.

Meeting details:

What: Interesting projects - open to everyone to present
Date: Tuesday 1 May 2012
Time: 7pm until 9pm.

Where:
OSS, Level 1, 162 Grafton Road,
Auckland - (The Compass Building, corner of Grafton Rd and Khyber Pass)
Open Street Map: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=-36.863399&mlon=174.764503&zoom=16
Google maps: http://g.co/maps/fdrw6

Other details:

OSS will provide Tea and Coffee at the meeting.

Parking available on the street. Feel free to turn up 10 minutes early, as we
do try and kick of the actual presentation at 7:00 pm.
If you turn up after 7:15 pm, you will need to call a mobile number on
the door to be let in.

Usually a bunch of people meet for a some food around 6:00 - 6:15 pm
before the meeting at Betsia Kebabs, 199 Symonds St. If your keen on
meeting for dinner, then please reply to the list so others know who
is going for dinner.

Regards
Glen Ogilvie
021 684 146

[Don Johnston]

Next year, when I am 65 and receiving National Superannuation, I intend
to start developing a web based facility for use in teaching maths and
for helping students when they get incorrect answers when doing their
maths homework. It will mark students' working, not just their answers.

It will initially be run on a server which runs Fedora and co-hosted
with one of my existing web sites. There is a lot which I will need to
learn before I get started.

I was thinking about making this a FLOSS project but the amount of
effort required to get other participants is likely to be greater than
the amount of effort required to do the whole thing myself.

I would like to give a brief (10 minute) presentation so that I can get
suggestions as to what "tools", including programming languages, I
should start learning.

Don Johnston

[Félix Saparelli]

On 23 April 2012 12:43, Don Johnston <ad...@ncearevision.co.nz> wrote:

I was thinking about making this a FLOSS project but the amount of effort required to get other participants is likely to be greater than the amount of effort required to do the whole thing myself. 

Note that FLOSS doesn't necessarily means there's more than one person working on the project. GitHub makes collaboration very easy, but the point of open-source isn't to "get other participants": it's to let the source be in the open and let people contribute if they want to. (Also, not on GitHub, there are a number of well used projects which have a single developer. Most linux programs actually started out as single-dev open-source programs.)

For example, on GitHub I have 20 public (open-source) repos. Out of these, 3 are forks of projects with a vast amount of contributors, and most of the rest are my own projects, which do not have any forks at all (well, ok, there's one or two). The thing is, all of these are open source (generally MIT). The effort to make something open source if you start from scratch is zero. The effort to make it open later on is quite a bit more than that.

-- Félix

[Jaco]

Augur, one of our TB members, is hosting an installfest on Saturday
(what with 10.04 LTS being released & all).
http://www.tangleball.org.nz/?q=node/267

- J

[Robert Fisher]

Hi Don,

I was reading your email and wondered if you had heard about the khan Academy project? It is similar to what you have described: http://www.khanacademy.org/

Thanks.

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[Don Johnston]

It is very different from the Khan Academy and the many other web sites which contain exercises in two respects. One is that its use is not restricted to exercises on the site (i.e. the questions can come from anywhere). The other is that each step of the student's working is marked, not just the answers.

Don Johnston

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[Glen Ogilvie]

Hi Everyone,

Just a reminder that the AuckLUG meeting is on tomorrow, 7:00pm @ OSS.

We have:

So far, we have 3 people doing 10 minute presentations, these are:

Dale Roberts: Talking about Firefox upgrades and his experiences with Firefox.
Don Johnston: Leading a discussion on tools to use when setting up a FLOSS project.
Glen Ogilvie: NetStora MS2000

Also, even if you have not contacted me or sent a message to the list, it would still
be great if you come along with something to present or talk about, as we have lots
of time for others to also present.


Regards
Glen Ogilvie

[Don Johnston]

On 30/04/12 09:13, Glen Ogilvie wrote:
> So far, we have 3 people doing 10 minute presentations, these are:
>
> Dale Roberts: Talking about Firefox upgrades and his experiences with Firefox.
> Don Johnston: Leading a discussion on tools to use when setting up a FLOSS project.
> Glen Ogilvie: NetStora MS2000
>

I will need all of the 20 minutes allowed. I will have to race through
my Impress slide show to allow sufficient time for discussion. I am
looking for comments and ideas in relation to what I am planning,
especially in relation to the choice of a functional programming
language for use on a remote web server which runs Fedora.

What is the best way for me to make the Impress file available to anyone
who wants to look at it in detail?

Regards
Don Johnston

[John Mihaljevic]

Assuming Don is running his presentation off a laptop or the like, anyone who wants the Impress file should be able to copy it off the machine onto a flash drive.

Regards
John Mihaljevic

---

[Mark Foster]

For folks with organised slides, happy to throw copies onto http://auckland.linux.net.nz for download.

Open formats, or PDF, should be fine.  Just email them through, I can have them live pretty fast.
Alternatively if presenters wish to host their own, I can link to them.

Mark.

[DR]

        Notice of Presentation Content:  [NO RESPONSE Requested]

Presentation Focus pts:  - A Novice Perspective

=================================

Note: Level of Technical presentation Very Low - NOVICE , but note that each user will have to do

an install of a browser at some time and will often update or Change browser more than once over life

of Device platform used [PC, Desktop, Netbook, etc]

Threat Report from "Vendor" - Update Or else !!!

User Concerns  - Backup, security, data loss ?, Rollback option

Profiles  - password, Custom Scripts,

Add -Ons [transfer / updates], third party contributors

Add on Scripts - Security , Popup, Adblock / NoScript

Taskbar (s) - browser dashboard customisation  [ buttons, search, Socmedia ]

Invitation From attendees to Add Feedback for Other Browsers [At Meeting]

 -- Opera, Chrome , others

 Issues for Users to CHANGE Browsers

  -  Download Managers

  -  Special  Features

 
=============================

[James Bryenton]

Hi Glen

Hi I had a computer crash yesterday which meant I had to reinstall O/S I installed Linux Mint as Magiea is complicated to configure, I wonder if you had some spare time again, outside of work or in lunch break to help me re install and configure Magiea please, I am happy to flick you twenty or thirty bucks for your time if need be. Or do you think I should leave Linux Mint on machine, I do prefer Magiea though.

Please advise

Regards

James Bryenton

 

---

From: Glen Ogilvie <ne...@linuxsolutions.co.nz>
To: auc...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, 30 April 2012 9:13 AM
Subject: [AuckLUG] Reminder: Aucklug Meeting - Tomorrow, Tuesday 1 May 2012

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[Alexander Taler]

> Just a reminder that the AuckLUG meeting is on tomorrow, 7:00pm @ OSS.

> Also, even if you have not contacted me or sent a message to the list, it
> would still be great if you come along with something to present or talk
> about, as we have lots of time for others to also present.

I will try and make it to present my shell

http://www.nongnu.org/hsh/

My laptop's being repaired, but I'll try and borrow another one
so I can demo.

Alex

--
hsh: The {Human|Happy|History} shell http://www.nongnu.org/hsh/
DEvelopment REFined - Enabling your software team - http://deref.co.nz/
PGP: ID: 0x23DC453B FPR: 42D0 66C2 9FF8 553A 373A B819 4C34 93BA 23DC 453B
Ironic humor dragged down all the twilight minarets he reared . . .

[John Rogers]

Warkworth contingent.... David Neil & John Rogers planning to attend
meeting, but not eating at Betsia Kebabs.

:-)

John Rogers

[Tim Westbrook]

On 30 April 2012 09:13, Glen Ogilvie <ne...@linuxsolutions.co.nz> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> Just a reminder that the AuckLUG meeting is on tomorrow, 7:00pm @ OSS.
>

Sorry, what is the address?

And fyi the meeting links on http://auckland.linux.net.nz/ seem to be broken.


Cheers,
Tim

[sond]

Tahekeroa (kinda near Warkworth) contingent... Sond planning to attend
meeting, but also not eating at Betsia Kebabs

: )


On 30/04/12 22:20, John Rogers wrote:
> Warkworth contingent.... David Neil& John Rogers planning to attend

[Mark Foster]

The meeting links on the Aucklug site still assume linux.net.nz works. Gonna rework it over the next few days - Don has sent me his slides to host (updates prior to tonight pending).

My apologies for tonight as family commitments trump the LUG.

Mark.
--
Sent from Kaiten Mail for Android. Please excuse my brevity.

Tim Westbrook <iond...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Tim Westbrook]

On 30 April 2012 22:51, Tim Westbrook <iond...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 30 April 2012 09:13, Glen Ogilvie <ne...@linuxsolutions.co.nz> wrote:
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> Just a reminder that the AuckLUG meeting is on tomorrow, 7:00pm @ OSS.
>>
>
> Sorry, what is the address?
>

Sorry once again, What is the physical address of OSS?


Cheers,
Tim

[Gareth McMullin]

I'll be attending.

Not strictly Linux related, but I'll bring along the debug/trace stuff
I've been working on for ARM Cortex micros. I can give an unprepared
demo if anyone is interested.

Cheers,
Gareth

--
Black Sphere Technologies Ltd.

Web: www.blacksphere.co.nz
Mobile: +64 27 777 2182
Tel: +64 9 478 8885
Skype: gareth.mcmullin
LinkedIn: http://nz.linkedin.com/in/gsmcmullin

[Bruce Clement]

On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 8:02 AM, Gareth McMullin <gar...@blacksphere.co.nz> wrote:

I'll be attending.

Not strictly Linux related, but I'll bring along the debug/trace stuff
I've been working on for ARM Cortex micros.  I can give an unprepared
demo if anyone is interested.

I have a dental appointment at 6PM (Booked before we changed the meeting date algorithm).

I'm not sure if I'll make it for the meeting, but if I do I'd be interested.


--
Bruce Clement

Home:    http://www.clement.co.nz/
Twitter:    http://twitter.com/Bruce_Clement
Directory: http://www.searchme.co.nz/

"Before attempting to create something new, it is vital to have a good appreciation of everything that already exists in this field." Mikhail Kalashnikov

[iondiode]

Ha, sorry , I had deleted original mail with address in it , all sorted, see you guys tonight.

Cheers,
Tim

[JHB]

On 01/05/12 08:02, Gareth McMullin wrote:
> snip

> I've been working on for ARM Cortex micros. I can give an unprepared
> demo if anyone is interested.
>
> Cheers,
> Gareth

I am curious in how to do something with arm. It is so confusing I am
not sure where to get started, what tools etc..

JHB

[James Bryenton]

Hi

Is there anyone in the group who either is going to be at meeting tonight or has some spare time sometime to help me install and configure either Magiea or Mandriva 2011 as I am running Linux Mint now but want to put either Magiea or Mandriva on to system, I am a relitively new user to Linux and not totally up to speed on the configiration of these to distros but want to install one of them. So if there someone who could help me please let me know

Regards

James Bryenton

---

From: JHB <josephhe...@yahoo.co.nz>
To: auc...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, 1 May 2012 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: [AuckLUG] Aucklug Meeting - Tomorrow, Tuesday 1 May 2012

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[JHB]

On 01/05/12 08:02, Gareth McMullin wrote:

> I'll be attending.
>
> Not strictly Linux related, but I'll bring along the debug/trace stuff
> I've been working on for ARM Cortex micros. I can give an unprepared
> demo if anyone is interested.
>
> Cheers,
> Gareth
>

Apologies. Something has come up which means I cannot make it today. If
possible, I would love to get any notes.

Thanks.

JHB

[Glen Ogilvie]

Hi Don,

Just thinking a little about your project idea you presented last night.

I think you might find these Javascript libraries handy.

http://silentmatt.com/javascript-expression-evaluator/

http://ariya.ofilabs.com/2011/08/math-evaluator-in-javascript-part-2.html


It looks to me like the following does a bit of what you are after too.
http://www.algebrahelp.com/calculators/
http://www.algebrahelp.com/calculators/equation/

Regards
Glen Ogilvie

[Don Johnston]

On 02/05/12 09:25, Glen Ogilvie wrote:
> Hi Don,
>
> Just thinking a little about your project idea you presented last night.
>
> I think you might find these Javascript libraries handy.
>
> http://silentmatt.com/javascript-expression-evaluator/
>
> http://ariya.ofilabs.com/2011/08/math-evaluator-in-javascript-part-2.html

These look very useful for my project if I use Javascript.

Another open source Javascript program which I have been hoping to
integrate into my system is ASCIIMathML.js:
http://www1.chapman.edu/~jipsen/mathml/asciimath.html
It can be used with Firefox or IE, the latter requiring a plug-in.

MathJax, which is also open source, is likely to be an even better option:
http://www.mathjax.org/
It can be used with all modern browsers without the need for plug-ins.

Both of these display normal mathematical notation in browsers.

> It looks to me like the following does a bit of what you are after too.
> http://www.algebrahelp.com/calculators/
> http://www.algebrahelp.com/calculators/equation/
>

These are very good as far as they go and so is Algebrator which is a
commercial product:
http://www.softmath.com/pmath.html
The problem with these is scope; they only handle some types of
problems. They do, however, give me ideas for my project which is aimed
at dealing with most types of problems in algebra, trigonometry and
calculus and a smaller proportion of problems in other branches of
secondary school maths.

Javascript certainly looks like an option which I should look into
thoroughly. I notice that it supports functional programming.

Can anyone think of any disadvantages of using Javascript for my project?

Also, does anyone have any idea as to how the marking could be triggered
automatically every time the user presses "Enter" to create a new line
in the text field in the form? If this can be done, it would
considerably speed up the students' learning.

Don Johnston

[Glen Ogilvie]

> On 02/05/12 09:25, Glen Ogilvie wrote:
> > Hi Don,
> >
> > Just thinking a little about your project idea you presented last night.
> >
> > I think you might find these Javascript libraries handy.
> >
> > http://silentmatt.com/javascript-expression-evaluator/
> >
> > http://ariya.ofilabs.com/2011/08/math-evaluator-in-javascript-part-2.html

-- cut

>
> These look very useful for my project if I use Javascript.

> Javascript certainly looks like an option which I should look into
> thoroughly. I notice that it supports functional programming.
>
> Can anyone think of any disadvantages of using Javascript for my project?
>
> Also, does anyone have any idea as to how the marking could be triggered
> automatically every time the user presses "Enter" to create a new line
> in the text field in the form? If this can be done, it would
> considerably speed up the students' learning.
>
> Don Johnston

Javascript is capable of performing an action when a users presses enter after entering some text. This
includes both in browser actions, and making requests to a server if needed.

It can also perform actions as the user types any input.

Regards
Glen Ogilvie

[Max Lay]

I would advise against javascript for it as the entire script would have to be downloaded every page load. It would be easily hackable, and any user can see the code (only an issue if it's not open source.) I would instead advise using javascript only for AJAX so you have the actions performed as the user typed (as above,) but have the code stored and running server side.

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[Glen Ogilvie]

Hi Max,

> I would advise against javascript for it as the entire script would have to
> be downloaded every page load. It would be easily hackable, and any user
> can see the code (only an issue if it's not open source.) I would instead
> advise using javascript only for AJAX so you have the actions performed as
> the user typed (as above,) but have the code stored and running server side.

Please explain why you think this is hackable, and why you think it needs to be downloaded
for every page. I disagree with both of your statements, because:

1. The Java script would be in an included file, as per standard use of javascript. This file
is cached in the browser, so only downloaded once per user, unless the code is updated.

2. Yes, the code is visible, but:
* This is an open source project
* The code can be run through processes that make it difficult to read
* Having the code visible does not make it hackable, unless your security solution is security via obscurity, in which case, it's not secure!
* Appropriate licensing information in the code headers resolves concerns about others using it.

3. Make ajax calls where needed, but they are slow and generate load compared to performing simple things like validation on the client.

Regards
Glen Ogilvie.

[Félix Saparelli]

Sorry I couldn't make it, Don.

On 3 May 2012 14:43, Max Lay <kald...@gmail.com> wrote:

I would advise against javascript for it as the entire script would have to be downloaded every page load.

Not necessarily, with caching and/or client-side storage.
 

It would be easily hackable,

That's relative. Large applications require a large amount of knowledge about how it works to be able to hack it. Having the code exposed doesn't make it hackable, it just makes (a form of) the code exposed.

and any user can see the code (only an issue if it's not open source.)

Or not. See for example the Angry Birds Google Chrome app. It's Javascript, the code is all there, but it's certainly not open source!
 

I would instead advise using javascript only for AJAX so you have the actions performed as the user typed (as above,) but have the code stored and running server side.

I'll not advise either way, but just mention that the current "best practice" for javascript-heavy web apps is to do the processing on the client and verify the result on the server. I.e. "never trust the client".
 

-- Félix

[Max Lay]

Javascript can easily be modified on the client side, so the student can potentially tell the server (teacher) that all work is correct / completed with relatively little effort.

[Max Lay]

If 'never trusting the client,' then wouldn't the engine have to be written twice, probably in two different languages?

[Tim Toolman]

Hey guys;

Didn't see the presentation, but it looks like you are talking about maths tutorials - have you looked a Khan Academy?  Has free training and worked excercises with realtime answer checking..

http://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard

May no be what you want, but I think its totally ace site for maths education..

- Toolman

Glen Ogilvie

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[Glen Ogilvie]

Hi Max,

> Javascript can easily be modified on the client side, so the student can
> potentially tell the server (teacher) that all work is correct / completed
> with relatively little effort.

Yes, if the design was such that the end results of correct / incorrect are what
is passed back to the server back end. The code would need to be written in such
a way that this is not the case. The are many ways around this, for example, passing
back the entire working and confirming them on the server during a marking step.

Glen

[Don Johnston]

On 03/05/12 15:50, Tim Toolman wrote:
> Hey guys;
>
> Didn't see the presentation, but it looks like you are talking about
> maths tutorials - have you looked a Khan Academy? Has free training
> and worked excercises with realtime answer checking..
>
>

The proposed system is not, in itself, a tutorial. Two things make it
stand out from the crowd (including the Kahn Academy), viz.
1. Each step of the students' working is marked, not just the answers and
2. the questions are not part of the system; they can come from
anywhere, including teachers or textbooks.

Don Johnston

[David Pando]

On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Don Johnston <ad...@ncearevision.co.nz> wrote:

These are very good as far as they go and so is Algebrator which is a commercial product:
http://www.softmath.com/pmath.html
The problem with these is scope; they only handle some types of problems. They do, however, give me ideas for my project which is aimed at dealing with most types of problems in algebra, trigonometry and calculus and a smaller proportion of problems in other branches of secondary school maths.

Javascript certainly looks like an option which I should look into thoroughly. I notice that it supports functional programming.

Can anyone think of any disadvantages of using Javascript for my project?

I didn't attend the meeting so not sure about the scope of your project. I'm learning Ruby using an online tutorial from rubymonks.com and they have a cool system where you can answer the exercises (little Ruby snippets) and the system checks that the answer is correct. Obviously Ruby code supports mathematical expressions so it could be useful for your purpose. The project is open source and can be downloaded from https://github.com/c42/ruby_primer , so you may adapt it to your needs. I took a quick look and doesn't seen you need to be a ruby guru to add your own lessons!

[Bruce Clement]

On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Max Lay <kald...@gmail.com> wrote:

If 'never trusting the client,' then wouldn't the engine have to be written twice, probably in two different languages?

No necessarity:
1. You can run javascript on the server.
2. You could write your application in Java and use GWT to compile it to javascript.

Others have pointed out why it is necessary to verify the results on the server anyway.

BTW: You can *never* trust the client. If your product gets popular enough, someone will reverse engineer the client (available source makes this easier but encrypted binaries can also be reverse engineered) and produce an easy to use interface to your API that script kiddies or other journos can abuse.

[Alexander Taler]

Hi everyone, I did a "10 minute" demo of my shell at the meeting
on Monday, with some good discussion. It's hosted on Savannah, here:

http://www.nongnu.org/hsh/

To summarize the preso:

+ I use hsh as my main shell, including as my login shell.

+ It's a curses application and solves my issues of lack of
ability to manipulate output once it's on the terminal.

+ It does many basic shell things:
- run commands
- globbing
- environment variables
- aliases
- tilde expansion
- job control
- etc.

+ It does several things unknown to traditional shells
- manage output of each command separately
- delete/forget about jobs that have run
- persist all input and output
- % expansion to access output of previous commands
e.g.
egrep -l 'foobar' *.log
rm %to
is equivalent to
egrep -l 'foobar' *.log | xargs rm
except it allows you to examine the output before running rm.
- run using pipes by default (not a "feature" per se)
- colour coded display.
- separate the boys from the men in terminal apps. Vi is a
victor, top is a terror.
- submit input to a process character by character as well as
line by line.

+ It doesn't do a bazillian things that it should, many of which
came up in the discussion
- pipes
- highlight errors as I type (e.g. globs that don't match)
- magically work as other users or remote machines
- allow me to rearrange my jobs
- group my commands and directories into "workspaces" so I can
easily jump to the group and see everything I was working
with last time.
- deal with "cat /dev/random"
- deal nicely with "yes" (I am working on this bit)
- better performance - it's not terrible in normal conditions
- etc.

+ I've developed it alone, but haven't got enough time to work
on it right now.

[Tomislav Skunca]

On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Don Johnston <ad...@ncearevision.co.nz> wrote:

Using just JS for the whole thing will be difficult. You will still
have to use designe the web pages in HTML/CSS, use database storage if
you plan to keep record of your students and do other things that you
don't need to code from scratch when there are decent frameworks that
give you a simple way to do these things. The first step would be to
write down all the project details on paper - features you want,
limits to the functionality, how would you go about generating
problems for pupils, scoring and the rest and then see which framework
offers the features you need. There's Ruby On Rails, Django, Joomla
and many more. Some are overkill for your needs, some use PHP (not a
nice language), some are really complex ... you get the point.

UI design should be the last thing you think about. That said I would
go with Django (python FTW) for the backend which will contain
database and software logic and static HTML pages for starters. Python
is a nice, modern, readable language that is flexible enough for your
needs and will enable you to easily mix-up the problems and add random
variations to your sets. Design the 'bones' of the project, code,
debug and make it work and _then_ consider which display libraries to
use for pretty visuals and sliding menus.

On the 'hackable' topic, it occurs to me that a smart student /could/
write a script to extract the problem from the page, clean it up, feed
it to Wolfram Alpha and then feed the result back to the page. Trivial
really, for some definitions of trivial. :)
Of course a slightly less motivated student could also just type it in
said engine. Oh well. There will always need to be a certain level of
trust and honesty for the online learning systems to function as
designed.

All in all it sounds like a fun project. If you wish you can contact
me via mail and I can help with the details.

[Zarek Jenkinson]

On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 3:02 PM, Tomislav Skunca <tomisla...@gmail.com> wrote:

On the 'hackable' topic, it occurs to me that a smart student /could/
write a script to extract the problem from the page, clean it up, feed
it to Wolfram Alpha and then feed the result back to the page.

Oo, an idea.

--
Zarek Jenkinson / akiwiguy / Eltu lefngap 'eveng
http://akiwiguy.net/
(+64 21) 0226 2670

[Don Johnston]

On 04/05/12 15:02, Tomislav Skunca wrote:
> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Don Johnston<ad...@ncearevision.co.nz> wrote:
>> Can anyone think of any disadvantages of using Javascript for my project?
>>
> Using just JS for the whole thing will be difficult. You will still
> have to use designe the web pages in HTML/CSS, use database storage if
> you plan to keep record of your students and do other things that you
> don't need to code from scratch when there are decent frameworks that
> give you a simple way to do these things. The first step would be to
> write down all the project details on paper - features you want,
> limits to the functionality, how would you go about generating
> problems for pupils, scoring and the rest and then see which framework
> offers the features you need. There's Ruby On Rails, Django, Joomla
> and many more. Some are overkill for your needs, some use PHP (not a
> nice language), some are really complex ... you get the point.

A number of aspects of the design of the system are still very much in a
state of flux.

I was talking to a school computer technician about the project today.
He immediately recommended Javascript and said that I will need to learn
PHP as well. The idea of client side processing appeals to me but I
can't claim to really know what I am talking about because I have no
experience of web programming.

The database design is very much up in the air at this stage.

It would contain a collection of files, each of which relates to a
particular exercise. Some would relate to particular textbooks or other
sources of exercises and others might be peculiar to individual schools
or individual teachers. In the latter two cases, I wonder if the files
would best be held on the servers in individual schools. The teachers
would be able to create such files for their own exercises if they so
wish. They could be made accessible to students at home via the school's
Moodle.

The system will not be generating exercises.

There may or may not be records relating to individual students,
teachers and schools.

I am familiar with HTML 4 but not HTML 5 or CSS.

> UI design should be the last thing you think about. That said I would
> go with Django (python FTW) for the backend which will contain
> database and software logic and static HTML pages for starters. Python
> is a nice, modern, readable language that is flexible enough for your
> needs and will enable you to easily mix-up the problems and add random
> variations to your sets. Design the 'bones' of the project, code,
> debug and make it work and _then_ consider which display libraries to
> use for pretty visuals and sliding menus.

The are some open source Javascript utilities which are likely to be
very useful and, at this stage, I don't know of similar ones in other
languages.

> On the 'hackable' topic, it occurs to me that a smart student /could/
> write a script to extract the problem from the page, clean it up, feed
> it to Wolfram Alpha and then feed the result back to the page. Trivial
> really, for some definitions of trivial. :)
> Of course a slightly less motivated student could also just type it in
> said engine. Oh well. There will always need to be a certain level of
> trust and honesty for the online learning systems to function as
> designed.
>

I am not worried about hacking by students. If they want to cheat the
system then they are the losers.

An interesting idea put forward by the above-mentioned technician is to
make the system a Moodle module, thereby giving it a lot of publicity,
possibly resulting in a large community including contributors. I have
not yet looked into this idea.

Don Johnston

[Glen Ogilvie]

On Fri, 04 May 2012, Don Johnston wrote:
> An interesting idea put forward by the above-mentioned technician is to
> make the system a Moodle module, thereby giving it a lot of publicity,
> possibly resulting in a large community including contributors. I have
> not yet looked into this idea.
>

Making it a Moodle module would be an excellent idea. This would remove many
of the necessary parts of the application, from being things you have to write
and that have to be managed.. For example, user management, authentication,
logging, hosting, database design, etc. It would also give it far more
exposure than if you develop on your own.

It also provides you with some clear guidelines as to what language and tools
you would need to use. These would be: Javascript for most of the client
side, and PHP for the back end components, like reporting, marking and
managing the database of exercises.

As a beginner, you'll have lots to learn, but having a community of other
people building stuff in moodle will help you learn and give you some examples
of things you might need.

So.. To start:

checkout the source code of moodle, using git, create your own branch and
write a plugin that, maybe for a start just displays your name..
Then make it display a maths expression, etc etc.

Regards
Glen Ogilvie

[Don Johnston]

This has taken a load off my mind. I had been worrying about the
possibility of learning languages and then finding out that they are not
well suited to the task. So it seems that, before starting to develop a
Moodle module, I should first learn Javascript and PHP. That fits in
well with the fact that there are some open source Javascript utilities
which are likely to be useful to the project. It also fits in well with
the fact that I have another use for PHP.

I presume that the marking could be done at the front end using Javascript.

About a third of N.Z. secondary schools use Moodle. I might add Moodle
to http://www.ncearevision.co.nz to host N.Z. specific resources.

I hope to eventually make money by providing resources and support to
schools.

Goodbye to my retirement!!!

Don Johnston