I finally got through the end of the M250 main module materials. For some reason, the last unit on file I/O was difficult for me to sit down and concentrate on. In the end, I took some detailed notes on the reasons behind the techniques suggested in the materials for handling files and streams, and then focused on the practical activities. In the last section, I saw that it was likely that they were going to have us import a collection of objects of a custom class from a text file, and wrote the method to do it using the Java class libraries as my reference. This ended up being the last four or five module activities all rolled into my one self-set challenge, and my solution was remarkably similar to the final M250 example. (I’d separately opened a scanner and a buffered reader, rather than wrap the scanner around an anonymous buffered reader.)

So I’m going to put in my second attempt at the last iCMA, then get going on the TMA. When the iCMAs are formative in nature, and I can take them as many times as I’d like, I always take them once before I read the relevant materials, and once after. I think a lot of people do this to focus their study. I just do it to track my progress.

I’ve done a little under half the TMA so far. It’s quite enjoyable. There’s a lot of iterating over custom data structures. Anybody who builds dynamic content web pages should find the logic straighforward, and can concentrate on the theory and the syntax.

I’m looking forward to revising this module. No idea where to start, so I guess I’ll start with past exams to see what’s expected.