Week 9

*Sigh*.... Just a few more weeks to go before i will complete this unit..... but i must admit the last hurdle is always the toughest one and i would have to deal with it to pass this unit. I just can't wait to get quickly to the end of week 12 somehow because it means no more boring lectures.... :)

Today, i was late for class and i was welcomed this morning with an array of even more complex diagrams that i have not seen before in my earlier lectures. Unfortunately the study guide 9 was a mere few pages and were not useful. Thus, i ended up reading the lecture notes and try paying more careful attention to the lecture.

Lecture 9 titled - "Structured Design" introduced me to system flowcharts and structured charts. System Flowcharts happen to be representations of various computer programs, files, databases, and associated manual processes that make up a complete system. In short, they show data movement within a system.

While Structured charts describes functions and subfunctions of each part of system and it also shows relationships between modules of a computer program. A Structured chart is developed using Transaction Analysis and Transform Analysis.

One difference between these two steps that i understood from the lecture was that:

• Transform Analysis uses Data flow diagrams (DFD) fragments for inputs, while Transaction Analysis uses system flowcharts and event tables for inputs

That was pretty much what i could grasp from the lecture for week 9.

Few hours later.......Tutorial 9 class begins.....

Tutorial 9 happened to be a continuation of week 8 tutorial because last week, learning to write the use case descriptions took up the whole class to understand so we couldn't do the Activity diagrams and sequence diagrams. So our work for tutorial 9 class was to make activity diagram and sequence diagrams. It was quite interesting and i learned the usage of different symbols used in Activity diagrams and Sequence diagrams.

So with the completion of week 9, i have learnt so far how to make context diagrams, data flow diagrams, use cases, use case descriptions, sequence diagrams, activity diagrams, event tables and class diagrams. Frankly speaking, i am still not an expert at making these diagrams but i guess the whole ideas of the tutorial was to get an idea of how to go about making the diagrams anf the tutor has been helpful in facilitating how to make these diagrams step by step.

Like I said before in my previous blogs, I would've appreciated if i had some more practice questions on these diagrams apart from the book and tutorials to master my skill at constructing these diagrams. An example has been while doing my Assignment1a and now currently while doing Assignment 1b, I have so many doubts because there are so many possibilities that i can't decide what to choose and I end up not knowing what should be done.

ARGGH!!!.....I will just have to trust my judgement, understanding and ability that what i am doing is the right way to go.

In conclusion this is what Analysis is all about challenging yourself to go deep and trust your judgement based on the knowledge and ability that you possess.

Time to work again on Assignment 1b with a new zeal and perspective. Thanks to this blog facility, i am able to reflect and revitalize myself again that i can perform well in this unit.