REU progress

Exploration of Python

After meeting with Dr. Xie, I started my research by exploring the depths of use python coding in various venues. The main venue I was introduced to was Visual Basic 2010 and I combined this with my previous knowledge of IDLE platforms such as VPython and Pygame. I created graphic, animated,non animated, and interactive (games) programs. After trying out these various Python platforms, although Visual Studio 2010 is easy on the eyes, basic IDLE platforms seem to still be easier to use, this could be biased based on my previous familiarity, but after extensive testing I believe this to be true. My next endeavor will be comparing ease of use of and efficiency of python to other languages and platforms. 

FSM-based testing for robotic programs

In these past two weeks I have met with Dr. Xie. He helped me focus my research in FSM based testing for robotic programs. I am currently developing different programs with the Tekkotsu platform using C++ style programming as well as creating black box testing techniques for each program. These programs are being executed on with the iCreate Robot.

Text Mining

After having a great dinner and talk with Dr. Tao Xie I became interested with Text Mining, and read through the information that he gave me. Text mining is a very useful tool that I believe will be in high demand in the near future. The ability to summarize and group large amounts of text such as emails, customer complaints, and surveys is very valuable to small businesses to big corporations.

SAS Text Miner gives you the capability to perform both descriptive and predictive text mining. From my understanding SAS does this by first processing the data using %TMFILER macro which creates a SAS data set. The data set is used in the text ming node for text parsing and then transformed into a informative format. Then it is analyzed for predictive and descriptive purposes.

Text Mining is a very powerful tool and is well on its way to become a high demand software. The %TMFILTER macro is so powerful and useful especially with the support of several languages, the possibilities are endless.

Travis W.

End of the sprint...

IBM has incorporated agile into their design structure and for me, this is nearing the end of this sprint. It has proved to be a very rewarding experience here at IBM.

That being said. I have been overloaded with work here and have found myself little time to work on research. I am hoping that the end of this sprint will allow me sometime to focus on returning to working on the research.

Itutor Update

The past two weeks made it very difficult for me to work on the iTutor eclipse plugin, because of my recent move from my old apartment. Limiting my accessibility to many of my necessary resources such as the internet, and not being in Raleigh. Now I am situated and continuing working on the plugin.

The previous version of the iTutor plugin decompiled the teacher's solution (.class) and the students solution (.class) and displayed method information of the decompiled classes. Currently I have been working on changing the GUI to read in the source directory and path directory of the TA solution and Student solution as requested by Jcute in order to create and run regression test on both solutions and display where the two solutions differ, and give the student an idea where they went wrong and what they need to correct.

Might reach conflict with previous code when requesting for the solutions, for the simple fact that JCute requires (.java) files and the previous code request for the (.class) files. Which I believe is a simple fix.

Co-op and GUI

Since last week was my first week at IBM co-oping, I was not able to put in many hours. I have also decided to move my updates to Sunday. This will better allow me to make meaningful updates.

Travis has made a class that will actually run jCute. The problem is, it seems to be hard coded and we need a flexible way to modify input files. I have been looking at plugins with eclipse and have spent about 4 hours trying to create a GUI interface for what Travis has worked on. I hope to have it submitted this Saturday into the SVN so there is a deliverable for work accomplished.

BERT

For the second part of my summer research I began working with BERT. So i put a pause on implementing JCute into iTutor. BERT is an eclipse plugin for regression testing. Bert allows you to select several projects in your workspace and checks behavioral differences in new versions of your project. This could be a very good tool to implement with iTutor when comparing the teachers "Golden Solution" with a students solution. The BERT view also displays the logs of version comparisons winch will also be very useful.

BERT also brought about some adversity. The plug-in was written on a Linux machine, and the programmers did not make the plug-in Windows friendly. As instructed by Dr.Xie I began trying to debug the code. This was a very daunting task that I didn't spend too much time on. we decided that it would be better for me to continue working with JCute.