Concept and Proposal Assignments

For those of you who want to look at the PDFs of the first two assignments, I've posted the concept paragraph assignment and the proposal paper assignment. I'm working through your concept paragraphs right now and should have email out to each of you on some basic feedback later this morning or early this afternoon.

Some "process" alternatives

The waterfall process is the traditional view of software engineering, where the stages of development proceed sequentially. In recent years, a number of alternative methods have been formalized and studied. Of these IBM's "RUP" (Rational Unified Process) and Agile XP ( Extreme Programming) methods stand out. Both of these methods emphasize the importance of communication and iteration. In general, RUP is best suited to larger groups or sparse teams, i.e. best for groups that can't always work closely together. Agile methods emphasise tight group collaboration, this is especially true for extreme programing approaches. These alternative methods offer important strategies for accomplishing complex system developments with tight time constraints.

Here is a link to a more descriptive coverage of Agile Software Development.

cute /. discussion on requirements and specs...

Slashdot has a cute discussion on gathering software specifications from *uncooperative* clients.

Squeak Land!?!

Alan Kay, a pioneer of computing and object oriented design, is a lead figure in a software framework and language that is suitable for children. Squeakland is this project.

Oh, dreamy web 2.0

Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Kansas State, Michael Wesch, works up a starry-eyed flutter for web 2.0. "What is it?" you ask. "It's you!" you'll find out. And all this time, I thought it was just drop-shadows and gradients.

(via Wonderland)

Room change part 2

It's official, we have moved to Sara Reynolds 102! Starting Feb 5.

UML

The Unified Modeling Language exists as a standard for making illustrations of system behaviors. In software engineering, UML has the role of illuminating difficult system interactions and serves as a tool for working out complex sequences or dependencies. Many tools exist for UML design, but many people still prefer good old pencil and paper.

Tools:

• argoUML: free and usefull
  
• IBM's Rational Rose: not free
  
• JUDE: not free, but has 20 day trial.
  
• UMLet: free *Drawing* tool for uml
  
• Poseiden for UML: free for 30 days
  

More ideas here? Drop a comment.

PERT

PERT, an acronym for Program Evaluation and Review Technique, is a classic method for organizing and scheduling project milestones. It has two nice features: 1) visual display of project progress, and 2) nice quantitative evaluation methods for estimating time to completion. Ray Morgan, an NASA subcontractor, explains a creative use of PERT charts as part of his development process.

Room change part 1

Class will be held in Ferris 141 today Monday Jan 29 and Wednsday Jan 31. We will be getting a new classroom soon, so there will be a part 2.

Assignment 2: Proposal

The proposal assignment involves expanding your concept into a more formal and complete description of the project. I am interested in content, i.e. did you consider and address the issues? I am not going to grade you on the document's formatting. Formatting is, however, important; it can convey a level of professionalism and originality. There are two deadlines for this assignment. The first deadline is for the proposal draft, the second is for the revision. The deliverable for part two is both the document and a short, 15 minute, presentation.

Key issues for assignment 1:

• Have someone proof read your proposal.
  
• Spel chcek
  
• Thorough previous work research.
  
• Clear description without bogging down in technical details.