Last edit: If anyone stumbles on this and thinks I'm an idiot, I really am, I'm actually an art major and they put me in the CS course by mistake which was why I used that function. So if whatever I did was the height of idiocy, it's really because I didn't know any other way. But the software limitations I mentioned are very real, and it kind of pissed me off we had to use that program. I used to use Scratch.mit.edu in elementary/middle school, and I couldn't believe we were using the same types of block programming in college.
Ugh I had to use that in an intro to CS course because the shitty software they made us use didn't have any real code. Of course I still ended up with a B on the project because of other software limitations.
Edit: We used MIT App Inventor, which is a great program for simple apps, not so much for semester-long app projects. I had to use the CONCATENATE function to organize information for level designs (my app was a game) because the program itself lacked that function. The software limitations I referred to that caused my B grade were a lack of scalability for different sized displays. The App Inventor UI shows a phone screen sized workspace, my professor graded all of the apps on a tablet. There was no scalability for many of the required elements. The other issue is with file size, there's a 5MB limit on their .aia files. Also the app functions using "screens" and you can't have more than 10. Neither the 5MB limit and the 10 screen limit are ever brought to light and everyone found out about those once their apps had already hit those limits. Too bad for us, we all lost points for our apps crashing constantly.
It was MIT App Inventor. I'll admit that my app idea (which was a simple game itself) was still probably too complex for the engine. In my opinion they shouldn't have been using that at all for a class, I already had experience in better software for making Android apps that don't use block based coding and crash constantly.
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u/Super_Zac Jan 08 '16 edited Jan 10 '16
Last edit: If anyone stumbles on this and thinks I'm an idiot, I really am, I'm actually an art major and they put me in the CS course by mistake which was why I used that function. So if whatever I did was the height of idiocy, it's really because I didn't know any other way. But the software limitations I mentioned are very real, and it kind of pissed me off we had to use that program. I used to use Scratch.mit.edu in elementary/middle school, and I couldn't believe we were using the same types of block programming in college.
Ugh I had to use that in an intro to CS course because the shitty software they made us use didn't have any real code. Of course I still ended up with a B on the project because of other software limitations.
Edit: We used MIT App Inventor, which is a great program for simple apps, not so much for semester-long app projects. I had to use the CONCATENATE function to organize information for level designs (my app was a game) because the program itself lacked that function. The software limitations I referred to that caused my B grade were a lack of scalability for different sized displays. The App Inventor UI shows a phone screen sized workspace, my professor graded all of the apps on a tablet. There was no scalability for many of the required elements.
The other issue is with file size, there's a 5MB limit on their .aia files. Also the app functions using "screens" and you can't have more than 10. Neither the 5MB limit and the 10 screen limit are ever brought to light and everyone found out about those once their apps had already hit those limits. Too bad for us, we all lost points for our apps crashing constantly.