All the SD Key Knowledge and theory slideshows

• UML and Use Cases - web page and theory slideshow - now with added ninjas!
• Searching and sorting data
• Binary trees
• Internal Documentation
• Features of a programming language
• The syntax of a programming language
• Data file types - serial, sequential, random access.
• Worms, Trojans, Spyware
• Using observation to develop systems requirements
• Data types
• Programming Language Paradigms (e.g. object oriented, procedural)
• Arrays
• The OSI model
• Algorithms
• Desk checks
• Indexing
• Linked Lists
• The 80/20 rule

Approved programming languages and necessary programming skills for 2011

(adapted from VCE Bulletin #80, June 2010)

"In the development of solutions, students should be able to:
• develop a graphical user interface (GUI), for use in mobile computing devices, such as laptops, personal digital assistants, gaming consoles, mobile phones
• construct and use data structures, for example multidimensional arrays, strings, sets, lists, tables, records, queues and stacks
• design, construct and use files (not databases) to store and retrieve data
• design and apply data validation techniques
• use program control structures: selection, iteration and sequencing.

The purpose-designed software will entail the use of objects, methods and their properties, and event-driven
programming."

Approved languages

• Basic (object-oriented variations only e.g. VB.NET - see VB6 below...)
• C++
• C#
• Objective C
• Visual Fox Pro
• Pascal (object-oriented variations only, e.g. Delphi)
• Visual J, Visual J#
• Java
• Perl
• PHP
• Python
• Ruby

The bulletin adds, "With all of the above languages, databases are not to be used to support the construction of solutions."

Additional languages can be used to embellish a product, for example Javascript with webpages. However, these would be supplementary to the main language and not replace it."

Also: "Specific distributions, projects or variations of languages may be suitable as long as they are able to address the criteria listed above..."  Read the bulletin for more details.

VB6 (Visual Basic 6)

On 23 August 2011, VCAA ICT Curriculum Manager Paula Chrisophersen wrote to the Software Development mailing list to say:

There has been some discussion about the suitability of VB 6 as a language that meets the requirements of the programing languages for 2011.

One of the criteria for determining a language’s suitability is its capacity to support object-oriented programming and graphical user interface design.

Any variation of Basic is allowed if it meets these requirements and while theoretically VB 6 does not "formally" support OOP, it does support objects, so for 2011 it is be considered an accepted programming language.

The list of programming languages will be reviewed early next year and the list maybe changed, taking into account the suitability of all languages.