I have to tell you, the people running this course don’t mess around. I’ve failed the final assessment about four times, and they let you retake it as many times as you like because it’s got this reputation for being brutal. I was pretty down about it at first, but then I learned that six times was about average. To which I say ‘what?’ but still. They want people to be the best, I guess?
See, it’s a web development course, one of Melbourne’s finest so I hear. The final assessment is to make a commerce website that actually sells things, so we have to get stock and everything. There are tons of things we need to implement, such as a system of ratings (I’ve gone for the good old star system), comments, reviews, Pineapple Pay, email response, SO much stuff, and it has to be absolutely secure. Not blind spots, no letting people log in and order the same thing twice in different tabs and only paying for one of them…and no hacks that let people steal credit card numbers. That one was written in red on the brief, so I’m guessing it’s pretty important. And yet…the most difficult. The people assessing your site use every feature and they all have to have at least some functionality. Then they buy something, and get this: they actually make a virus that attacks your site in some way. You have to have proper features in place to prevent it, and you can’t just pay for some software to do it for you. Yep, that’s where our software development comes in: it actually has to be custom-designed software, from the ground up. Madness, sheer madness.
Every time I’ve submitted my website (we sell Chinese antiques! No, really!) I’ve done really well, up until whoever’s making the viruses throws that at me. Two of my customers have had their details stolen, while another had a Trojan installed on his/her computer. The other virus just brought down the entire site. So basically, it’s my web development course assessment, but also online warfare. Just wait until I unleash website Mk V, with impregnable defences. Probably.
-Mark