The purpose of this web page is to summarize my experiences with
WebGrid for my CPSC 547 class.
To start using WebGrid, I decided to attempt to evaluate some
books I had read. Initially, I did not understand the meaning
of 'elements' and 'constructs' so I entered them in backwards.
After several aborted attempts at making sense of the mess, I
loaded up one of the pre-made grids, which showed me where I had
gone wrong.
Now that I had a good idea how to go about the grid creation,
I went ahead and plugged in some values. I did not find the Triad
function to be of much use, although it did confuse me nicely
on my first attempt, when my constructs and elements were switched.
I found it most useful to analyze what it was about books that
I liked, such as length, topic, interest level, and proceeded
to dream up constructs that accurately described those attributes.
This part was a little more difficult to do because it was hard
finding constructs that were meaningful to all the 547 topics
listed. In the end, I decided on the following:
| Recent Developments | Been around a while |
| System dependent | Complete system abstraction |
| Individual centered | Corporation centered |
| Inexpensive | Expensive |
| Relatively unused | Used everywhere |
| Will die off | Enormous growth potential |
When making the choice for these constructs, I found myself drawn
to choosing ones that were clearly good on one side and clearly
bad on the other. For instance, Inexpensive - Expensive. However,
I could not do so for all constructs and felt that I had somehow
failed. I admit I am still uncertain if that should be a goal
to strive for or not.
In the resulting comparison of our two grids, most of the constructs
failed to match up, but there were a few interesting anolgies.
One interesting correlation was between Relatively Unused - Used
Everywhere and Development Tool - Application. It makes sense
that development tools are far less used that application tools
by the majority of the population.
Unfortunately, a four-way comparison of the constructs used shows
that we differ in terminology as well as distinctions.
My part of the group presentation was object oriented databases. I have chosen to evaluate six of them based on common criteria useful to anyone wishing to meaningfully compare them. Here is my initial grid:
The PrinCom analysis shows some interesting things:
Here, an implied relationship exists between Fast and Fakes Object
Orientedness. This tells me that true object oriented databases
are not as fast as their near-object counterparts.
The focus follows:
The focus analysis clearly demonstrates that the least expensive
systems are also the least used ones. This illustrates a general
market fact: Once you have a great system and people want it,
raise the price.
Although I was initially skeptical as to how useful this system
is, I now realize that it permits the user a glimpse at their
data from a totally different perspective. It graphically shows
us what should have been obvious in the first place, as well as
things that you would normally never have thought of.
Please feel free to e-mail me with questions about my WebGrid experience.
Dima Mnushkin Mail