CSc Fall 2005 Homework 5

Due before the beginning of class Thursday, April 6.

This homework is based on the Model/View/Controller (MVC) example provided by Joe Bergin of Pace University. You have the code on the CD provided at the beginning of the course, and I have distributed paper copies of an article by Bergin. Oops! I did NOT include that. I am sending you a JAR file with all the Java source, plus Joe Bergin's paper, as a Word document.

You need to understand the concepts of the example, in terms of:

• The way the program uses the MVC design pattern: what is the Model? what are the Views? How do they communicate with each other?
• The event-driven nature of the application: nothing happens until the user takes an action.
• The Java features involved: the Observer and Observable classes; the difference between a superclass and an interface.
• How the Model knows what Views to update; registering as a listener.
• The Best Practices style of classes: all variables private; getters and/or setters provided as needed.

Your understanding of these concepts will be tested on the midterm. You do not submit anything about them as part of the homework.

You will NOT be asked to explain the details of how the vari0us displays are created.

What you submit for the homework is the code for a different View of the temperature, with some kind of control for changing temperature.  Samples are  provided below, and will be demonstrated in class. This is a free-form assignment. Learn something about GUI building, and do it. Have fun! Find a creative way to display temperature, and make the code work.

Make an executable JAR file and attach it as your homework submission. Everything will be the same as what you get from the course CD, except the class for creating your new display. I would like to be able to run each team's submission by clicking on the file name in Windows Explorer. But make sure you check the box to include source code! I want to compile your program, too.

You realize that this assignment was done in 221 last year. Students from those sections can be found. I take it for granted that you understand how unwise it would be to copy their work. You know that you would learn nothing that way. And of course I am not blind, and if I were to discover outright copying--which I am sure I will not--the students submitting such work would get zero on the homework.

Here are some samples of previous student work. This is just to give you some general idea of what I am asking: something of your own, of some substance. I'm not going to try to define a minimum acceptable level of creativity. I will tell you that I gave less than full credit for a team once that did nothing in their display except make an unlabelled circle get bigger with higher temperatures. That's not enough.

But let me not end on a negative note. Some of you asked for a chance to do more fun GUI stuff. Here you go! You need some experience with the subject anyway. Go for it.

This one is considerably more than minimum--but fun:

Likewise:

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