New File Added: Electronic Scoring System

[sp220]

Originally Posted by grimsby archer

I am astonished, amazed, flabbergasted, infact words fail me that you make these admissions yet still have the bottle to put up your program as a "usable" system for others to use. There is a sure fire career for you somewhere, probably sales at microsoft!!!

Also Mrs GA has just fallen off her chair reading about all the info you have on your running slips. It is her job to write out the running slips for our two major tournaments this year (approx 100 archer each tourny, one being 2 day) "You neednt think that I am doing that" was the phrase she used.

Whilst I am on a roll, in processing running slips I often discovered score cards that were changed AFTER filling in the running slips. I cant find any easy way of viewing or amending previously entered data to find and correct mistakes.
AND there doesnt seem to be any validation: I can enter ABC for a score and your system amazingly manages to accept it as a valid score; There is no way of checking running scores against totals. My system (like several others) you enter a dozen total and the computer tells you what the running total should be (these are the two items on my running slips)

My system (oh it sounds like Im boasting now) runs the double fita. About 100 archers. Me and another person collect running slips, I enter all the data. Leader board updated by the end of the next end and final results were ready 15 minutes after the end of shooting, both days with printed results for people to take away. Some people were still taking their bows down when we called them for the presentation. Damn Im good.
Like I said, come to the double fita star and be in awe!

To edit a mistake, simply select the correct bow category using the drop-down box on the main menu, and it will take you to a sheet with the results for any single category. If you have already calculated results, they will also be in order. The sheets on these pages are unprotected, and do allow manual correction.

There did used to be validation, however, it was found to be too restrictive when trying to be used for all rounds. so instead of the validation being modified, it was removed (we assumed the user would have a knowledge of archery, so it wouldnt be too necessary)

Lol, yes the system is very far from perfect, but then again it was designed for academic quality, and not at all for actuall use.

Basically, my IT teachers had no knowledge of archery - so the fact that this does everything it says it does, means I recieved full marks. (when it had validation it did anyway)

The fact that it doesnt do everything an archer says it should do, is a real shame.

The system is more visually pleasing (except for the frantic screen blinking) than practical (which is how it was designed - to be as simple as possible)

When I have seen macro-based plain black and white spreadsheets with everything on one page which were much more usefull and took far less time to put together!

However, when used in competition, it did have amazing success! 2 minutes after the running slips were in we printed out the results sheet!

[dfunct]

Originally Posted by sp220

Lol, yes the system is very far from perfect, but then again it was designed for academic quality, and not at all for actuall use.

Basically, my IT teachers had no knowledge of archery - so the fact that this does everything it says it does, means I recieved full marks. (when it had validation it did anyway)

Please don't take this as an insult but this really is what's wrong with IT in schools, the fact you said this was in Excel and you have another (larger project) in Access leads me to believe you did this as part of an A2.

In schools instead of trying to teach a valid development approach using proper tools and an ACTUAL programming language, as I think they should at this level, they simply aim to get you though the course and make you a better user rather than anything resembling an IT professional - there are people here on my Computer Science course who have done A2 IT and they are shocked to learn that they have to learn a real programming language - simply put the step up from the A2 IT to the first year Computer Science degree is more that a lot of people can handle.

/end rant

[sp220]

Originally Posted by dfunct

Please don't take this as an insult but this really is what's wrong with IT in schools, the fact you said this was in Excel and you have another (larger project) in Access leads me to believe you did this as part of an A2.

In schools instead of trying to teach a valid development approach using proper tools and an ACTUAL programming language, as I think they should at this level, they simply aim to get you though the course and make you a better user rather than anything resembling an IT professional - there are people here on my Computer Science course who have done A2 IT and they are shocked to learn that they have to learn a real programming language - simply put the step up from the A2 IT to the first year Computer Science degree is more that a lot of people can handle.

/end rant

Yes, but:

A computer science A-level is where you may learn true programming language, and extra actuall computer science based on mathematics... Although not taught at my college.

An IT A-level is information technology, so alot of what is learned is not computer related. Its more of a buisness module than it is anything about programs. You are not expected to move onto a computer science related course afterwards. Maths would be the best option to take.

And yes - IT A-levels are/were lame. Mine most certainly was very easy to pass.

But then again I did have biology, chemistry and physics to make up for the easy choice. I regret not choosing maths instead.

[dfunct]

Originally Posted by sp220

Yes, but:

A computer science A-level is where you may learn true programming language, and extra actuall computer science based on mathematics... Although not taught at my college.

An IT A-level is information technology, so alot of what is learned is not computer related. Its more of a buisness module than it is anything about programs. You are not expected to move onto a computer science related course afterwards. Maths would be the best option to take.

And yes - IT A-levels are/were lame. Mine most certainly was very easy to pass.

But then again I did have biology, chemistry and physics to make up for the easy choice. I regret not choosing maths instead.

They have a Computer Science A2 now? I wish they had something like that when I was doing my A2's - I might of actually paid attention and not failed miserably and ended up going back to college 3 years later to get to university 2 years after that!

I won't be swayed on the fact that they should be teaching students more than just VBA and the very basics of design and the implementation of small systems, IT should be being more aware of everything IT not just blinkered to Microsoft programs and there environments...

[sp220]

Originally Posted by dfunct

They have a Computer Science A2 now? I wish they had something like that when I was doing my A2's - I might of actually paid attention and not failed miserably and ended up going back to college 3 years later to get to university 2 years after that!

I won't be swayed on the fact that they should be teaching students more than just VBA and the very basics of design and the implementation of small systems, IT should be being more aware of everything IT not just blinkered to Microsoft programs and there environments...

You are totally correct really... the world is far larger than microsoft.. I wouldnt be surprised if some money pasts hands somewhere along the line to do with that subject tbh...

And yep, as far as I know they have always had a computer science A-level, but only very few places opt to teach it as apparently, it is pants, and students basically have to re-learn everything including the basics when they get to uni... so it ends up being of little help to them...

[grimsby archer]

Originally Posted by sp220

Lol, yes the system is very far from perfect, but then again it was designed for academic quality, and not at all for actuall use.

That explains a lot.
I admit to doing A-level computer science 25 years ago when the commodore pet, zx spectrum,acorn atom and bbc micro were the latest machine technology and if it wasnt a mainframe, it wasnt a "proper" computer. Mind you, we did get gnas cards (from the regions) in less than 6 months.

I have been a professional code wrestler (ok, becoming a visual designer wrangler) for the last 10 years so perhaps I am a bit hung up on standards, quality and "proper" programming.

I suggest your forte would be in sales/marketing rather than programming though, though it was a good first attempt. A case of "it does what it does" rather than a practical solution.
I liked the step of throwing as many people (clerks) at the problem as necessary to make up for the systems short comings.

[sp220]

Lol, to be honest, the club already used that many clerks to do just the manual counting system :-S

I dont know why... one of them also used to chalk the names onto a blackboard which served as a leaderboard too.