SE511 - Week9 - Post2

Tonight I started working on updating Team D's design documents to reflect the final design for PA3. I sent out a response to Ed's email on Continuous Development and continued reading the text books. The PA3 project has some issues and is throwing exceptions. Additionally, the sound functionality isn't working. There was a large Skype thread going on this weekend about the project, but not much on the class Wiki or blogs.

SE511 - Week9 - Post1

The PA3 Tetris project is starting to stress me out a bit. Throughout the project, I've been experiencing communication problems and that are preventing progress to occur.

I met with Sebastian (Team G), Shiloh (Team D, but Tetris main lead), and Shalini (Team E) on Skype tonight and we worked out a lot of details. I discovered that some of the communication was occurring outside of the normal channels of the Wikis and I was out of the loop on some design decisions. Of course, the things I was unaware with affect my team's implementation. The Game object was a missing piece for the HUD, but I found out tonight that there is a Game System that will handle the next block, current block, speed of the block, etc. Sebastian took on implementing and merged this tonight so now we should be able to move forward. Team D's HUD implementation also needed the method names for the GameState::getStateType(), GameState::getLevel(), GameState::getLineCount(), and GameState::getScore() methods from Team F, but these methods were posted late last night.

Up until tonight, I have monitoring Perforce, sending emails to the Team Leads through the Wiki, and monitoring blogs to try to get the kinks worked out. Hopefully we can get the HUD merged to the mainline by tomorrow night.

As I've said before, it will be interesting to see how this all pans out.

SE511 - Week8 - Post3

Team D has our weekly Tuesday night Skype call tonight. I need to follow up with Team F and Team C to see what methods we need to call for the HUD t update levels, lines, scores, and the next block information. Hopefully we can get the information that we need to wrap up the implementation by Thursday so Kofi can write unit tests by Saturday.

SE511 - Week8 - Post2

The Tetris team leads discussed meeting on Skype tonight at 9 PM to discuss the design. However, Shiloh and I were the only two online.. I posted some design questions/requests on Friday night for the other teams. I received replies for what Team D is looking for so hopefully we won't run into integrating the HUD with the rest of the design. It should be interesting to see how this pans out.

SE511 - Week8 - Post1

Tonight Team D had a 1.5 hour meeting to go over our Tetris HUD design and come up with a list of questions for the other teams. We assigned our roles for the Tetris project and posted them at: https://sites.google.com/site/se511globalsoftwaredevw2011/team-d-tetris-task-list.

I posted a thread on the class Google Groups for Team F and Team C to verify if they plan on having accessor methods for variables that we'd need access to. I created a UML diagram for the HUD design and posted it on our Wiki page at: https://sites.google.com/site/se511globalsoftwaredevw2011/team-d-tetris-hud-design-documentation
This page also has a brief description of the methods and an action item list for following up with the other teams.

The iPhone app for my SE591 capstone class, Block Slider, was released on the Apple App store today. If I have any readers, go check it out because it's a free download:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/block-slider/id417852324?mt=8

SE511 - Week7 - Post3

Now that Team D has chosen the HUD feature set for the partitioning project, I went ahead and linked the class master list to our Wiki page. I created the appropriate Tetris design Wiki pages. Team D has a Friday night meeting to discuss our design for Saturday's deliverable due date, but I'm hoping we can get thing started before then since we don't have much time. It's going to be interesting to see how this assignment pans out.

SE511 - Week7 - Post2

Today at work, I attended a forum given by Wayne Turmel called "How to Create and Manage Remote Project Teams.  The forum tied into what we're covering in SE511.  Wayne is a speaker and author that focuses on his work on managing teams and communicating online. He has a podcast called the "Cranky Middle Manager Show" and his blog on BNET.com is covers topics related to managing remove functional project teams.

I found the forum to be interesting. Wayne focused on being a human and having interaction with people.  One example he gave was about a project where part of a team was in New York and another was in India and it wasn't working very well.  On one Friday, a team member posted on a blog that they were done for the day and was leaving to go have grandma's famous chili.  This spun into a whole discussion and trading of recipes where eventually team members were even asking "by the way, how is your grandmother".

The point of this was to reduce the spoke of one-on-one only communication and getting team members to communicate with one another. Likewise, communication shouldn't only occur when people needs things. This helps break down the barriers of us vs. them.

I didn't expect that this 1.5 hr. forum would be about this and I think it was good for everyone to hear this and step back and think for a minute.  With focus on reducing costs, faster schedules, etc., people start to throw out being nice to one another to get the job done.

From my own experience, I work with people in Mexico, Tiawan, and China.  After I travel to these locations, meet the people (so that they aren't just an email or voice that I hear on the phone), share a meal with them, and perhaps share a beer with them, I find that trust is built and we're able to work a lot better together.

SE511 - Week7 - Post1

The Tetris assignment looks like it is going to be challenging.  I think the most difficult part will be coordinating tasks between the whole class.  Team D just had ~2 hr. meeting to discuss the project.  We created a high level design document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hulnzMKJKc4yF4hQF0jSdSwSQvDA5h0T2xxzKcxOY_8/edit?hl=en&authkey=CKLy44cD#) and posted it on the class Tetris Wiki.  The document broke out the design into 6 chunks.  The idea behind this would be to create discussions between the class and hopefully each team could take a chunk of the design.  That way, each team can hopefully have some time this week to work on the design activities for their chunk for Saturday's deliverable due date.  I have my doubts that this is going to work like this in aneducation environment since it's Tuesday and communication is just now starting between the class. Hopefully the high level design document will get things rolling. We'll all have our work cut out compared to the last 2 assignments. The team projects have been building blocks on one another.

Prior to our meeting tonight, I took some time and played the benchmark at http://www.freetetris.org to to get familiar with the features.  After that, I looked at the provided code posted in Perforce, but found that there were unresolved external symbol errors. However, somebody from the class (Perforce says jschrantz, thank you!) has already fixed that this evening and now the code compiles and runs a "Global Software Tetris!" GUI. That's pretty cool!  The provided code has a lot of functionality already built in so hopefully we can work together to make this work well.

I hope that the team starts commenting on the design and we can get the work "partioned off". After that occurs, I think the progress will start happening.  I see potential for us all to step on each other's toes a bit.

SE511 - Week6 - Post5

I should have mentioned that I found a few bugs in our implementation with the unit tests that I wrote. Mirza updated the implementation to fix the bugs.  It's not how much tests costs, but it's what they are worth..

SE511 - Week6 - Post4

I completed my portion of PA2, the unit tests.  I wrote unit test for the following methods:


* List::empty()
* List::exists(Node* n)
* List::deletenode(Node* n)
* List::front()
* List::getIndex(Node* n)
* List::insertAtNode(Node* n, const Node& insNode)
* List::pushFront(Node* n)
* List::pushBack(Node* n)
* List::size()
* List::getKindex(Node* n)

My unit tests are checked into Perforce under: //keenan2011winter_se511/Teams/Team_D/PA2/SearchList/SearchList/luketests.cpp

Now I need to get caught up on my reading for this course.

SE511 - Week6 - Post3

I watched the week7 lectures today. I found the interviewing information useful. It has made me think about compiling a list of my favorite Software Engineering books, tools, processes, and philosophies.  I need to get caught up on my reading. Between work, the team projects in the class, my capstone course, and buying a new house I'm running out of steam.

I had a difficult time getting the Visual Studio sln set up for unit tests. Luckily, Mirza helped me out and I was able to start moving forward. I completed most of my unit tests tonight. I shouldn't have any issue finishing the rest of them tomorrow afternoon.  I checked what I have completed into Perforce. Kofi is helping out with unit testing too. I feel pretty lucky in the class as my team seams to work well with each other and everyone holds up their end of the deal.

After tomorrow it will be two projects down, one to go.

SE511 - Week6 - Post2

I joined a 10:30 PM Skype call with Kofi tonight with Team B. Our team will be implementing their design so Kofi was working to clarify things.  During the call, the Skype call lost connection and I couldn't rejoin the conversation. Hopefully the issue was only on my end..

SE511 - Week6 - Post1

I just finished up the Tuesday night Skype Team D meeting.  For the implementation portion of PA2, I will be working on unit testing for Team B's design.  Kofi might help out on testing as well as coordinate with Team B.  Some of the Team D team members have been ill this week so hopefully we'll all be strong enough to complete our tasks this week.  Mirza and Brad will each code a class of Team B's implementation. Shiloh will continue to lead the group and coordinate with the Team C.

I'm hoping Team D stays on track so that I can start unit tests on Thursday.

SE511 - Week5 - Post4

Team D had another 1 hr. meeting tonight to discuss our PA2 design.  I made some more updates to the UML class diagram and Brad is making updates to my "PA2 Bucket Class Interactions.docx" to prevent a loop of confusion.  With 3.5 hours of team meeting and 4 hours of UML and method call descriptions, I spent 7.5 hours on the first part of PA2.

The team will keep in contact tomorrow in case there's anymore questions, but we're ready for the implementation phase.

I can tell already that having one team design something and another one implement it is very challenging.  I had a difficult time understanding our design and our team discussion typically lead to confusing everyone.  I have doubts that another team will fully understand what we want them to do, but we'll see what happens.  In my day job, I work with electrical engineers in China, Tiawan, and Mexico and I constantly run into issues. I can provide diagrams, work instuctions, you name it.. and it usually takes a lot of time to get even simple tasks on track.

Time to jump on my SE591 iPhone app.

SE511 - Week5 - Post3

After taking a fresh look at the UML diagram that I created last night, I realized I think I might have been thinking too hard (or I was tired - I had a lot more coffee today) and misunderstood some things. I updated the UML diagram and reposted it on the Team D Wiki.  I also created a class method call list per Shiloh's request.

Hopefully the team will be able to look over it tomorrow and provide feedback prior to our 9:30 PM meeting so that we have something good to deliver on Saturday.

Well, off to go try to find a memory leak issue for the iPhone app in my SE591 capstone course...  Tomorrow's Friday, but all that means is that I'll shift from coding at work and at home for school to just to school.

My wife asked me today if I had class for SE591 on Monday since it's Valentine's Day...  Looks like I might want to think about an extra dozen of flowers for her.

SE511 - Week5 - Post2

I spent about 4 hours tonight working on the PA2 assignment.  After last night's meeting, I still wasn't completely understanding our design. I figure, if I'm not grasping, the other team(s) that will be implementing our design won't understand it easier. I struggled to make useful UML class diagrams in Google Docs, so I created a more detail version in Visio and posted the draft on the team Wiki at: https://sites.google.com/site/se511globalsoftwaredevw2011/home/team-d/project-assignment-2-buckets

I had to download Visio from MSDNAA and install it on my machine to generate the updated UML.

I sent a few messages to the team from our Google Groups page asking for clarification to make sure I have this captured correctly so that I can write pseudo code for the methods.  I'm hoping that the UML can be as useful as text descriptions.

At this point, I'm done this evening and I hope I get some good feedback from the team by tomorrow night. I plan on meeting with the team on Friday night via Skype to finish up the first portion of the assignment.

SE511 - Week5 - Post1

I submitted my PA1 individual write-up tonight. I also scrambled to watch the snow lectures prior to my Team D Skype meeting.  It would have been nice if this material would have been posted on Friday as originally posted by the professor.  I have my capstone course on Monday nights and I work full time (lots of overtime these days), so I wasn't well prepared for my team meeting tonight to discuss our bucket design.  If the lecture material would have been posted by Saturday, I could have spent more time over the weekend working on it. Looks like I'll have to lose some sleep this week to meet my objectives for this class.

Team D had a 2.5 hour online meeting tonight discussing the bucket design.  I have agreed to start putting the design concept into UML so it's easier to discuss with one another because we ended up confusing ourselves and going in circles tonight. If we can't fully understand our design, it'll be difficult to have somebody else implement it.  Shiloh is going to be the team lead for PA2, thanks Shiloh!  I created a page on our Wiki for PA2.

I'm still wondering when I might see some feedback or a grade for HW1...  I find it disappointing when professors do not provide feedback and hold up their end of the course. I posted a message at the end of week3 and was told that grades would be posted in COL in week4, but that still hasn't happened.  Am I supposed to guess that I'm doing OK in this course and not find out until it's too late?

I'm glad I got a head start earlier in the quarter with the reading assignments.

SE511 - Week4 - Post6

I had an issue with one of my methods being protected so I changed to a method with higher complexity. I now have 9 unit tests up and running and committed to Perforce.  I touched base with Mirza and Shiloh tonight via Skype.

In this assignment I learned about using Perforce in a team environment, Visual Studio 2010, C++ code, team coordianation and working with legacy code.

I think I'm ready for the written part of the assignment and the week5 lecture.  If the lecture isn't posted soon, next week will be fun with overlap of lecture material for SE511 and the workload for my capstone course.

SE511 - Week4 - Post5

Seven tests down, two to go.  This assignment has been pretty time consuming.  I didn't do the best job of picking my 9 methods to test.  I originally picked some protected methods that seem impossible to test without changing the cyclone test. Therefore, I picked some replacement methods (obviously after checking my team's list for conficts).

Hopefully the week5 lecture will be posted on Friday, 2/4/11. Otherwise I won't be able to watch it until at least Tuesday..

SE511 - Week4 - Post4

It's started snowing, and it took me over 2 hours to commute home. Luckily I'll be working from home tomorrow.

Team D had our 2nd Skype meeting tonight for PA1. We were able to hash out some loose ends and it seems that we're on track for this weekend's deliverables.  My internet connection started failing at the end of the call.

I have about 4 of the 9 tests completed.  I originally completed these as individual files and submitted them to Perforce as I completed them. Tonight I refactored all of my tests into one common file. I cleaned out the old files from Perforce and submitted the new one. I'll be posting updates to Perforce as I complete them.   I'll need to check out the team's VS project file and update it to include my cpp file.  I'm currently having problems testing cyclone::AeroControl::setControl method.

I need to touch base with Brad and Kofi as it seems we have some duplicate method picks. Brad, Kofi, and I all chose the integrate method, and Kofi and I both picked the addRotation method.

I'm liking Perforce better than SVN.  Perforce is a lot easier to understand. I use SVN from the command line on my Mac.

SE511 - Week4 - Post3

My lack of C++ has been causing me headaches. I was trying to instantiate classes incorrectly.  Fortanetly, John posted something on the class Google Groups that help me out. Now I'm up and running with some of my tests.  I'll be meeting with the team tomorrow to discuss our progress for this week's deliverables.

SE511 - Week4 - Post2

SE511 - Week4 - Post2

I updated the Team D Wiki PA1 page to have a table for the who is doing what.

I've got some tests setup. However, my lack of C++ is getting the best of me. I'm getting "IntelliSense: a nonstatic member reference must be relative to a specific object" errors and I'm having a difficult time setting up the objects to test them.

SE511 - Week4 - Post1

Tonight I attended the CDM Graduate Student event and met Ed. This week I added Ed to the Team D Google Groups page. I spent some more time reviewing the physics code and brushing up on C++.  I found the following websites useful for C++: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2293481/understanding-c-code-what-do-datatype-and-classnamemethod-mean and http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/classes/.  I find a lot of helpful things on the stackoverflow.com, I use it a lot for my iPhone development stuff.

Team D had some confusion on our group roles. All of us will be submitting our own write-ups for PA1.

I found the Understand C++ output from the physics code to be very useful.  I used this tool to pick my easy, medium, and difficult tests. I created a spreadsheet for Team D and posted it on our Wiki at: https://sites.google.com/site/se511globalsoftwaredevw2011/home/team-d/project-assignment-1-unit-testing  The rest of the team is planning on picking their tests by Saturday, 1/29/11.

I will be working on writing the tests over the weekend. I will post my difficulties and successes as they occur. The team will be meeting on Tuesday to discuss the project.

SE511 - Week3 - Post4

Team D just had our first team meeting.  Brad has taken on the lead role for PA1, thanks Brad!  I setup a Team D Google Groups page at: http://groups.google.com/group/depaul-se511---team-d, email: depaul-se511---team-d@googlegroups.com I sent out a message to the team on the physics code.  I haven't done unit testing in Visual Studio, but I have done a lot with JUnit. I'm going to try out a few test cases and provide feedback to the team on how to break up the work.  For my role, I guess I will be tackling the project write up, but I'm hoping that we can divide this up among the team. We'll have to see if it's better to post documents to our Wiki or start a Google Docs page.

SE511 - Week3 - Post3

Mirza helped resolve my issue with the PA1 Visual Studio project:

"Here's how you fix it:

Project Properites -> Linker -> Manifest File -> Generate Manifest
File: NO.

It's a weird bug because on some computers it'll be an issue and on
some it wont.  I remember the exact some perforce repository worked
fine on some school PCs but would have the issue on my home PC.  This
should take care of it.  Let me know if this works."


I'm looking forward to meeting my team tomorrow and getting project 1 started.

SE511 - Week3 - Post#2

I updated the Team D so that the team members' names are links to their individual blogs.

I started looking at the Physics code, but I've ran into a snag.  I can clean and build the project, but I can't run it per the provided "Readme.txt" found under PA1/Project_1/ .  I posted the issue to the class blog and I'm hoping that it's an easy solution that somebody can help me with.  Other students are having the same issue.

I looked at the following pages for solutions to the problem:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/vbgeneral/thread/e60dcbf9-c6a0-47a6-bc37-68d4edc45276/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/612624/unable-to-start-program-debug-build

SE511 - Week3 - Post#1

It was nice to have the lecture notes posted this week.  I watched SE511 lecture 3 and submitted my contact information for Team D on the class Wiki page. I'm also going to try to link my personal blog to my contact info.   I'm waiting for the rest of the team to submit their contact information so that we can kick off the first phase and pick the team lead.

In the meantime, I created a Team D Wiki Page for Project 1.  I'm also going to start looking at the Physics code and unit test suite.

I opted to skip the Bears/Packers game so that I can keep on my assignments for SE511 and SE591.

SE511 - Week2 - Post#2

Over the weekend, I read chapter 1 from the Pragmatic Programmer.  If you like this book, Rework is also a good book to check out.

Week2 - Post1

I watched week 2's lecture. I'm waiting for the Branching lecture notes to be posted.

I'm also curious about the professor's comment about Java, "hope that Java goes away", why is this?  Do you favor Microsoft and C#?

SE511 - Week1 - Post #2

I submitted HW1 into Perforce. I wasn't clear on how the files should be submitted so I submitted the full Visual Studio C++ project folder.  I didn't get too fancy with the code, but I don't think that's the point of the assignment.
I do not have much experience with C++ programming, so that was the biggest hurdle for this assigmnent. However, I'm interested in learning the language and more about Visual Studio.

SE511 - Week1 - Post #1

Hellow SE511.  I've spent time this week getting my Perforce and Visual Studio 2010 environment setup and reading the online documentation.  I tried setting up my Perforce environment on Friday 1/7/11 prior to receiving the professors instructions on Saturday, but ran into issues since I needed creditials information.

I have completed the C++ programming assignment, and know I'm reviewing the best way to post it in Perforce.  I'm new to Perforce so I'm going to spend tonight figuring out the best way to use it.