| PAFIS-2004-AFIS | |
The purpose of this workshop is mainly to introduce the PHP programming language, which will be our main tool for creating web-based applications throughout the course and program. This is, if you like, the purely technical goal. The purpose with respect to contents and topic is to have you learn, through the experience of constructing one, how an interactive simulation model which integrates information from the Internet with local content can be structured and realized.
The topic of the workshop is the economic order quantity or EOQ model - a basic inventory optimization model that should be familiar to many of you from previous studies. A little research will show you, that there are in fact several variants and extensions to the basic model, which can be used to optimize inventory more accurately.
What we would like you to do is to build a set of web pages, where the user can enter values into a chosen variant of the EOQ model, and where your server-side PHP code will then perform the calculations and present the results to the user. Please structure the web pages so that they include instructions for the user - written by you.
About the techniques you will be needing: HTML, of course, because that's what a web page is, and in particular you'll need to know how to utilize tables, frames and forms. Tables, because they are so very useful for presenting numerical information; frames, because without them it is difficult to create a user interface that doesn't annoy the user too much; and forms, because that is how users can enter values that your formulas will calculate with. Look into these, in the HTML references, if you haven't already. Then, of course you need PHP, which is kind of the point of this workshop, and the actual content - the EOQ models. Please start by experimenting a little with the PHP language - write code to create different things, a web page which just adds two values together, and so on, before embarking on the EOQ pages. It will be well worth it.
The deliverable for this workshop is a set of web pages which introduces the user to EOQ models for inventory optimization and allows the user to experiment with - calculate - using a variant out of the numerous extensions of the EOQ model. The calculations requested by the user should be done using PHP code on the pafis.shh.fi server. Please follow the guidelines in the introduction above.
The deliverable will have to be in place - in the form of a clearly labelled and easily located link from your home pages - by 12:30 AM, Wednesday September 29th, at the very latest.
Your submission will not be graded, but it will represent a learning milestone for the actual prototyping project that will start later on.
You are free - and strongly encouraged - to complete and submit the deliverable in groups of two people. Just make sure that you both link to your submission from your respective home pages, even though you need only prepare one set of files. Groups of more than two people are not allowed, and that is the final word on that issue! ;-)
We ask you to note the ground rules regarding cooperation and collaboration: It is perfectly all right to share ideas, discuss, and plan together, have a look at how other people are doing things, look at each other's code, help each other out and so on and forth. All of these are, in fact, very good ideas indeed. But it is not all right to copy and paste - we do expect that every submission is prepared by the two (or one) people submitting it. The different groups must not submit different versions of the same file(s) - you are supposed to write them separately. If you have any questions whatsoever about this policy, please ask the faculty directly. For the record: people who copy other people's efforts and submit them as their own will receive a public warning. Repeated violations can and will lead to being excluded from the course.
Here's some useful stuff:
If you need help, please try to cooperate – ask your colleagues, help your colleagues! The easiest way to ask questions is probably by e-mail: ogan@pafis.shh.fi or oana.g.velcu@shh.fi. Good luck!