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Week 10 [Fri, Oct 16th] - Project

tP:

  1. Start the next iteration
  2. Update the DG with design details IMPORTANT
  3. Smoke-test CATcher IMPORTANT counted for participation
  4. Ensure the code RepoSense-compatible

tP: mid-v2.0

Guidance for the item(s) below:

Some things to note as you start the v2.0 iteration:

  • Set moderate targets for functionality. Adding more functionality than needed will not earn you more marks but can expose you to higher risk of bugs.
    Focus on improving the process and the quality instead.
  • Move in small steps, and keep the product working at each step. If it breaks, you will only have to examine the latest change for the cause of the breakage.

1 Start the next iteration

The version you deliver in this iteration (i.e., v2.0) will be subjected a peer testing (aka PE Dry Run) and you will be informed of the bugs they find (no penalty for those bugs). Hence, it is in your interest to finish implementing all your features you want to include in your final version (i.e., v2.1)final features in this iteration itself so that you can get them tested for free. You can use the final iteration for fixing the bugs found by peer testers.

Furthermore, the final iteration (i.e., the one after this) will be shorter than usual and there'll be a lot of additional things to do during that iteration e.g., polishing up documentation; all the more reason to try and get all the implementation work done in this iteration itself.

As you did in the previous iteration,

  • Plan the next iteration (steps are given below as a reminder):
    • Decide which enhancements will be added to the product in this iteration, if this is the last iteration.
    • If possible, split that into two incremental versions.
    • Divide the work among team members.
    • Reflect the above plan in the issue tracker.
  • Start implementing the features as per the plan made above.
  • Track the progress using GitHub issue tracker, milestones, labels, etc.

In addition,

  • Maintain the defensiveness of the code: Remember to use assertions, exceptions, and logging in your code, as well as other defensive programming measures when appropriate.
    Remember to enable assertions in your IDEA run configurations and in the gradle file.
  • Recommend: Each PR should also update the relevant parts of documentation and tests. That way, your documentation/testing work will not pile up towards the end.

2 Update the DG with design details IMPORTANT

  • Update the Developer Guide as follows:
    • Each member should describe the implementation of at least one enhancement she has added (or planning to add).
      Expected length: 1+ page per person
    • Describing the design at a multiple-levels (e.g., first, describe at architecture-level, then describe at component-level) is optional. It is also acceptable to have one Design & Implementation section in which you describe the entire thing at the class- and object-level.
    • The description can contain things such as,
      • How the feature is implemented (or is going to be implemented).
      • Why it is implemented that way.
      • Alternatives considered.
Admin tP Deliverables → DG → Tips
  • Aim to showcase your documentation skills. The stated objective of the DG is to explain the implementation to a future developer, but a secondary objective is to serve as evidence of your ability to document deeply-technical content using prose, examples, diagrams, code snippets, etc. appropriately. To that end, you may also describe features that you plan to implement in the future, even beyond v2.1 (hypothetically).
    For an example, see the description of the undo/redo feature implementation in the AddressBook-Level3 developer guide.
  • Diagramming tools:

    • AB3 uses PlantUML (see the guide Using PlantUML @SE-EDU/guides for more info).

    • You may use any other tool too (e.g., PowerPoint). But if you do, note the following:
      Choose a diagramming tool that has some 'source' format that can be version-controlled using git and updated incrementally (reason: because diagrams need to evolve with the code that is already being version controlled using git). For example, if you use PowerPoint to draw diagrams, also commit the source PowerPoint files so that they can be reused when updating diagrams later.

    • Can i.e., automatically reverse engineered from the Java codeIDE-generated UML diagrams be used in project submissions? Not a good idea. Given are three reasons each of which can be reported by evaluators as 'bugs' in your diagrams, costing you marks:

      • They often don't follow the standard UML notation (e.g., they add extra icons).
      • They tend to include every little detail whereas we want to limit UML diagrams to important details only, to improve readability.
      • Diagrams reverse-engineered by an IDE might not represent the actual design as some design concepts cannot be deterministically identified from the code. e.g., differentiating between multiplicities 0..1 vs 1, composition vs aggregation
  • Use multiple UML diagram types. Following from the point above, try to include UML diagrams of multiple types to showcase your ability to use different UML diagrams.
  • Keep diagrams simple. The aim is to make diagrams comprehensible, not necessarily comprehensive.
    Ways to simplify diagrams:
    • Omit less important details. Examples:
      • a class diagram can omit minor utility classes, private/unimportant members; some less-important associations can be shown as attributes instead.
      • a sequence diagram can omit less important interactions, self-calls.
    • Omit repetitive details e.g., a class diagram can show only a few representative ones in place of many similar classes (note how the AB3 Logic class diagram shows concrete *Command classes using a placeholder XYZCommand).
    • Limit the scope of a diagram. Decide the purpose of the diagram (i.e., what does it help to explain?) and omit details not related to it.
    • Break diagrams into smaller fragments when possible.
      • If a component has a lot of classes, consider further dividing into sub-components (e.g., a Parser sub-component inside the Logic component). After that, sub-components can be shown as black-boxes in the main diagram and their details can be shown as separate diagrams.
      • You can use ref frames to break sequence diagrams to multiple diagrams.
    • Use visual representations as much as possible. E.g., show associations and navigabilities using lines and arrows connecting classes, rather than adding a variable in one of the classes.
    • For some more examples of what NOT to do, see here.
  • Integrate diagrams into the description. Place the diagram close to where it is being described.
  • Use code snippets sparingly. The more you use code snippets in the DG, and longer the code snippet, the higher the risk of it getting outdated quickly. Instead, use code snippets only when necessary and cite only the strictly relevant parts only. You can also use pseudo code instead of actual programming code.
  • Resize diagrams so that the text size in the diagram matches the the text size of the main text of the diagram. See example.

3 Smoke-test CATcher IMPORTANT counted for participation

  • This activity is compulsory and counts for 3 participation points. Please do it before the deadline.

Some background: As you know, our i.e., Practical ExamPE includes peer-testing tP products under exam conditions. In the past, we used GitHub as the platform for that -- which was not optimal (e.g., it was hard to ensure the compulsory labels have been applied). As a remedy, some ex-students have been developing an app called CAT stands for Crowd-sourced Anonymous TestingCATcher that we'll be using for the PE this semester.

This week, we would like you to smoke-test the CATcher app to ensure it can run in your computer.

4 Ensure the code RepoSense-compatible

  • Ensure your code is i.e., RepoSense can detect your code as yoursRepoSense-compatible and the code it attributes to you is indeed the code written by you, as explained below:

    • Go to the tp Code Dashboard. Click on the </> icon against your name and verify that the lines attributed to you (i.e., lines marked as green) reflects your code contribution correctly. This is important because some aspects of your project grade (e.g., code quality) will be graded based on those lines.
          

    • More info on how to make the code RepoSense compatible: