To Exam Info

IT231 -- Review Guide for Take-home Midterm

Study

• Course Notes, especially Review Questions at the beginning of each lecture.

• Midterm Review Questions

• Projects 1 to 4

• The textbook will help fill in the gaps in your knowledge.

Exam Format

• Exam questions will be of the following possible formats:
   
  
  Short Answer, Short Essay, Multiple Choice, Computer Problems.
  
  

Definitions

• Command Prompt Window, DOS commands, Ruby, ERB, Rails, DRY, Convention over Configuration, controller, view, layout, route, HTML vs. XHTML, CSS, scaffold, model, CRUD, helper function, Rails datatypes, Rails helper methods (image_tag, stylesheet_link_tag, link_to), ERB delimiters (<%=, %>), REST, HTTP (GET, POST, PUT, HEAD, DELETE), port number, well-known port, default port for HTTP, default port for Rails, 6 ways to run Ruby (IRB, batch Ruby script, ERB, Rails controller, Rails console, load Ruby file from Rails console), Ruby constants (integer, floating point, string, boolean), Ruby classes (FixNum, Float, Time, String) ; see the UML Examples Page for methods. instance variable, local variable, method, Ruby object methods common to many objects (new, to_s, to_i, to_f, class, methods), Rails datatypes (integer, float, string, text, boolean, date, time), Ruby operators (=, +, -, *, /, %, ==, <, >, <=, >=, !=, <=>), Ruby control structures (if..else, while), Ruby builtin methods (puts, print, random, STDIN.gets), ActiveRecord methods (new, count, save, all, find, delete, delete_all).

Be Able to

1. Answer short essay questions. Here are some sample questions:
    
   
   1. Explain how to create a Rails controller with some views.
      
   2. Explain how to create a Rails application using scaffold software, according to a simple database design.
   3. Explain what DRY means and why it is important for Rails probramming.
   4. Explain what REST means and what it means for Rails programming.
   
   
2. Find mistakes in the source code for a Ruby project.

 
3. Modify the HTML and CSS files of a Rails project.
    
   
   • Set the following properties for body, p, h1, h2, h3, td, th, and a: background color, text color, font, font size, font weight (bold or normal), font style (italic or normal), padding.
      
   • Set the width and height of an image.
   
   
4. Write views that are compatible with a layout.
    
5. Use the Rails helper functions stylesheet_link, image_link, link_to.
    
6. Modify the years displayed in the year of a date entered on the form included in the new or edit view of a scaffold. (Recall that the form is defined in _form.erb.html.
    
7. Predict the output of a Ruby script.
    
8. Modify a Ruby command line application to accept user input.
    
9. Modify a Ruby command line application to display output from the controller on a web page using ERB.
    
10. Write a Rails project that displays an image on a form according to calculations in the controller (like Project 4).
     
11. Determine the instance variables and methods of a class by looking at a UML Diagram or Ruby source code.
     
12. Create a UML Diagram based on the source code for a Ruby class.
     
13. Write Ruby source code statements to test a Ruby class as specified by Ruby source code.
     
14. Write a command line statement to create a Rails model.
     
15. Add validations to a Rails model (validates_presence_of, validates_length_of, validates_numericality_of).
     
16. Manipulate the contents of a Rails database by using ActiveRecord methods loaded from the Rails console (like Project 3, Item 4.