Coursework for the MSc has been going at varying speeds for a week now. I lost sleep earlier on when trying fine tune the MVC setup (no Cake here). Then things sped up nicely over the weekend when I began happily juggling tabled views around.

Then I thought it might be nice to display the user’s basket on all relevant pages, as a courtesy. This was easier than I’d thought. I simply add a new MVC and merge it’s results.

I have a master array of values matching each area of my template, I array_merge it with that which I receive from View to populate the page. If a user is logged in, a new step merges the user info MVC set with the main View prior to overwriting the defaults. This handles and returns all their account/basket details neatly into a sidebar, all without breaking the rules or setting up problems for later.

Our coursework is out. We have to develop a book sales site, providing new and used books to Students, sorted by course and subject. Browse (search maybe), login, reserve, purchase facilities. We also have to report on the design, the security implications and the implementation.
I am taken aback by the complexity of this first assignment as I know some on the course are new to web programming and to the languages we’re using here (PHP/MYSQL).

So far my contribution has been to think v. hard about the database setup (producing many an erroneous email and retraction emails behind them) and to being with an MVC approach to the login area.

We have a way to go, and less than a month to get there.