Class01
Course Introduction
MIS 3502, Spring 2016
Jeremy Shafer
Department of MIS
Fox School of Business
Temple University
1/12/2016
Agenda
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Objectives of the course
The Mechanics (grading)
Value proposition of the course
Hopes and dreams
The approach we’ll take
Getting started…
Course Description
In this course students will develop skills needed to solve real-world problems
using cloud-based resources. This course aims to equip students with tools to
help them translate prototypes into working products, and to prepare students
for careers related to application development.
Course Objectives
Two broad objectives exist:
1. Provide supplemental information that was not feasible to present in
MIS3501.
2. Give students the opportunity to create a working prototype application.
The Mechanics
Graded Materials
• Exams (3)
60%
• Project (1)
30%
• Quizzes (8)
10%
Exams will be multiple choice / short answer. Quizzes are intended
to reinforce concepts learned in challenges, and also prepare you for
the exams.
The project will the primary measure of your technical skill.
Value Proposition
Founders of Top Unicorn Firms
• Uber - Travis Kalanick (UCLA) Computer Engineering
• PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX – Elon Musk (Penn, Stanford) Physics and
Economics
• AirBNB - Nathan Blecharczyk (Harvard) Computer Science
• Palantir - Joe Lonsdale (Stanford) Computer Science
Reflections of Former Students
“Thanks for a great semester. I really enjoyed this class. I feel
confident enough … that I can go out and actually make things …
Without MIS3501 I would've been lost in this class.”
– Andrew Crerand, student in MIS3502 last semester
http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/computer-programmer/salary
Hopes and Dreams
Successful IT Career
(thanks in part to your secret
super-power)
Successful IT Career
(as a developer)
Successful IT
Career
( as an Innovator /
Entrepreneur )
The approach we’ll take
New tools
Weeks 1-6
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Using a web
framework
Weeks 7-9
Using a mobile
device IDE
Weeks 10-12
The class project
(It’s a bake off!)
Weeks 13-15
Arrays
PDO
MVC
JavaScript / JSON
RWD / CSS
This class will be light on lecture, and heavy on exercises. Come
to class ready to work, and ask questions.
Getting Started
It’s time for a gentle (re)introduction to arrays.
Our objectives
1. Know what an array is.
2. Be able to create an array in PHP
3. Add, change, and delete data from an array.
What is an array?
An array is a data type that can contain one or more items called
elements. Each element stores a value that you can refer to with an
index. The length of the array indicates the number of elements that it
contains.
In short, an array is a structure that allows us to store multiple pieces of
similar data.
Creating an array
The syntax for creating an array
$array_name = array([value1[, value2, ... ]])
The syntax for referring to an element an array
$array_name[index];
How to create an array of names
With one statement
$names = array('Ted Lewis', 'Sue Jones', 'Ray Thomas');
With multiple statements
$names = array();
// create an empty array
$names[0] = 'Ted Lewis'; // set 3 values in the array
$names[1] = 'Sue Jones';
$names[2] = 'Ray Thomas';
Arrays can store any data type.
How to create an array of discounts
With one statement
$discounts = array(0, 5, 10, 15);
//these are integers
With multiple statements
$discounts = array(); // create an empty array
$discounts[0] = 0;
// set 4 values in the array
$discounts[1] = 5;
$discounts[2] = 10;
$discounts[3] = 15;
Arrays of undetermined length
The syntax for adding an element to an array
$array_name[] = $value;
How to add a value to the end of an array
$letters = array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd');
$letters[] = 'e';
// a, b, c, d
// a, b, c, d, e
Manipulating array contents
How to set a value at a specific index
$letters = array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd'); // a, b, c, d
$letters[0] = 'e';
// e, b, c, d
$letters[3] = 'f';
// e, b, c, f
$letters[5] = 'g';
// e, b, c, f, NULL, g
How to get values from an array
$letters
$letter1
$letter2
$letter4
=
=
=
=
array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd'); // a, b, c, d
$letters[0];
// $letter1 is 'a'
$letters[1];
// $letter2 is 'b'
$letters[4];
// $letter4 is NULL
Deleting Array Elements
Functions for removing the values from elements
unset($var1[, $var2 ...])
array_values($array)
How to delete values from an array
$letters = array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd'); // a, b, c, d
unset($letters[2]);
// a, b, NULL, d
unset($letters);
// $letters is NULL
How to remove NULL elements and reindex
$letters = array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd'); // a, b, c, d
unset($letters[2]);
// a, b, NULL, d
$letters = array_values($letters);
// a, b, d
Let’s try an exercise