This site is from a past semester! The current version will be here when the new semester starts.

Week 10 [Fri, Oct 16th] - Project

tP:

Do a postmortem of the previous iteration
Adjust process rigor if necessary
Start the next iteration
Update the DG with design details
Smoke-test CATcher COMPULSORY counted for participation
Do a trial JAR release

tP: mid-v1.3

1 Do a postmortem of the previous iteration

Discuss with the team how the iteration went (i.e., what worked well, what didn't), and your plans to improve the process (not the product) in the next iteration.
Keep notes about the discussion in your project notes document so that the tutor can check them.

2 Adjust process rigor if necessary

Adjust process rigor, as explained in the panel below:

After following the given workflow for at least i.e., until the end of v1.2one iteration, optionally, you may adjust the process rigor to suit your team's pace. Here are some examples:

Reduce automated tests: Automated tests have benefits, but they can be a pain to write/maintain.
It is OK to get rid of some of the troublesome tests and rely more on manual testing instead. The less automated tests you have, the higher the risk of regressions; but it may be an acceptable trade-off under the circumstances if tests are slowing you down too much.
There is no direct penalty for removing tests. Also note our expectation on test code.
Reduce automated checks: You can also reduce the rigor of checkstyle checks to expedite PR processing.
Switch to a lighter workflow: While forking workflow is the safest (and is recommended), it is also rather heavy. You may switch to a simpler workflow if the forking workflow if you wish. Refer the textbook to find more about alternative workflows: branching workflow, centralized workflow. Even if you do switch, we still recommend that you use PR reviews, at least for PRs affecting others' features.
If you are unsure if a certain adjustment is allowed, you can check with the teaching team first.

3 Start the next iteration

The version you deliver in this iteration (i.e., v1.3) 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., v1.4)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.

4 Update the DG with design details

We want you to take at least two passes at documenting the project so that you can learn how to evolve the documentation along with the code (which requires additional considerations, when compared to documenting the project only once).
Wt is better to get used to the documentation tool chain early, to avoid unexpected problems near the final submission deadline.
It allows receiving early self/peer/instructor feedback.

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
- 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 v1.4 (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. In particular, avoid showing lower-level details of multiple components in the same diagram unless strictly necessary e.g., note how the this sequence diagram shows only the detailed interactions within the Logic component i.e., does not show detailed interactions within the model component.
- 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. Similarly, rakes can be used to divide activity diagrams.
- Stay at the highest level of abstraction possible e.g., note how this sequence diagram shows only the interactions between architectural components, abstracting away the interactions that happen inside each component.
- 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.

5 Smoke-test CATcher COMPULSORY 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.

Download the latest version of the CATcher executable from https://github.com/CATcher-org/CATcher/releases.
Launch the app. Allow the app to run if there are security warnings (e.g., for Win 10, click the More Info link in the security warning and choose Run anyway).
If the app is blocked by your virus scanner, put it in a new folder and add the folder to the exclusions list of the virus scanner.
If you encounter other problems at the app launch, refer to the Notes on using the CATcher Desktop App.
Login: Choose the session CS2103/T Alpha Test, and submit.
In the next screen, login to CATcher using your GitHub account.
If the app asks for public repo access permissions, grant it (just go with the default settings).
Let CATcher create a repo named alpha in your GitHub account, when it asks for permission. That repo will be used to hold the bug reports you will create in this testing session.
Use the app (not the GitHub Web interface) to create 1-2 dummy bug reports. The steps are similar to how you would enter bug reports in the GitHub issue tracker. Include at least one screenshot in one of those bug reports.
you can copy-paste screenshots into the bug description.
You can use Markdown syntax in the bug descriptions.
The severity and type labels are compulsory.
Report any problems you encounter at the CATcher issue tracker.
Do NOT delete the alpha repo created by CATcher in your GitHub account (keep it until the end of the semester) as our scripts will look for it later to check if you have done this activity.
Do NOT delete the CATcher executable you downloaded either; you will need it again.

6 Do a trial JAR release

Do a resulting in a jar file on GitHub that can be downloaded by potential usersproduct release as described in the Developer Guide. You can name it something like v1.2.1 (or v1.3.trial). Ensure that the jar file works as expected in an empty folder and using Java 11, by doing some manual testing. Reason: You are required to do a proper product release for v1.3. Doing a trial at this point will help you iron out any problems in advance. It may take additional effort to get the jar working especially if you use third party libraries or additional assets such as images.