Project 3 Final Thoughts

Unfortunately I have not been keeping up with my blog posts, but I'll make a post going over what I remember from working on Tetris with the entire class.  So, the first step was to come up with a design within our teams and then have delegates collaborate and come up with a final design.  My team, again, was very agreeable, but I didn't pay much mind to it, which looking back I should have.  After the delegates came together on a final design, the class received a 'finalized' version of the design about an hour before the class that it was due, so I didn't really even know what it was.  Then we spent that class re-factoring our designs.

That gets the design part up to speed, now our group's implementation.  Our group really became a duo I feel like.  The others in the group kind of fell off and disappeared.  Communication went down with the others, one even stopped talking with us all together until about yesterday or the day before.  The others, were very hesitant on talking, accepting tasks to work on, and became hard to work with to be honest, because the amount of help they needed to complete a task was excessive.

My work:  Since the design was kind of flawed, since it didn't have much time to settle, I was under the impression that the FallingPiece was handling it's collisions, and it was told if there was a collision.  Therefore, I wrote functions in falling piece to handle those collisions, or atleast simulate it so we could keep working forward.  That was scrapped.  Next, I "helped" write the Audio system.  I say helped in quotations because the teammate that was in charge of it asked for a demo of how to do it, so I demo'd how to write it, just for playing the theme.  Next, he asked for demos for the other functions, so I did it.  At this point, I thought to myself I might as well just be in charge of it.  I told him that, and it started some conflict in the group, but eventually I handed him over my demo, so he could 'use it as reference'.  Once he had submitted it and said he was done, we advised him that it should be a singleton, which of course he needed help on.  Next, when we tried implementing it, it didn't work; because since he was still following demo code I wrote, he didn't account for file locations, so I fixed that.  Other than that, I helped Alejandro with his tasks of gluing the game together, since I had a sneaking suspicion that it was a lot for one person to handle.



P.S. Since this is the last post for the class, I'll be posting the rest of Peter's Laws if you've been keeping up.

#6 - When forced to compromise, ask for more.
#7 - If you can't beat them, join them, then beat them.
#8 - If it's worth doing, it's got to be done right now.
#9 - If you can't win, change the rules.
#10 - If you can't change the rules, then ignore them.
#11 - Perfection is not optional.
#12 - When faced without a challenge, make one.
#13 - "No" simply means begin again at one level higher.
#14 - Don't walk when you can run.
#15 - Bureaucracy is a challenge to be conquered with a righteous attitude, a tolerance for stupidity, and a bulldozer when necessary.
#16 - When in doubt: THINK!
#17 - Patience is a virtue, but persistence to the point of success is a blessing.
#18 - The squeaky wheel gets replaced.
#19 - The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live.

Team Project 2

Hello, whoever reads these. I've been slacking on these, so I'll cover the entirety of team project 2.  The project seemed to go relatively without a hitch. our implementation pattern seemed to be implemented well, and accurate, although there were some questions along the way.  Likewise, we implemented Team 1's design rather well, again, with some questions along the way, but nothing too difficult, and it wasn't anything we couldn't handle.  There is an issue that is starting to arise I've noticed, which is the desire to have synchronous meetings.  I understand synchronous meetings are ideal, and I understand wanting to have everyone there, but sometimes it just doesn't work, even now, so I'm not sure why some of my group pushes for this, especially because, to simulate global software development a synchronous video meeting would almost always be impossible if we were working with people anywhere else in the world.  It's not that big of a deal, but we've been in the situation where one or two people could not make a synchronous meeting; and instead of holding the meeting and catching the one or two people up to speed, we've just rescheduled.


Peter's Law 5 - "Do it by the book...but be the author!"

Team Project 1

  After setting up a team, and beginning to talk, it was pretty easy to tell who was going to be easy to work with and who was going to be a hassle to get them to work.  Creating unit tests themselves were pretty easy.  I had some problems with the harder unit tests, mostly because it was hard to understand what they were doing, what with bad documentation.  While the more complex unit tests were harder, I wouldn't say that they were too difficult, or maybe even venture to say it wasn't difficult, period.  I programmed them with relative ease last night.  One of our group members isn't doing to much talking with the rest of the group, so I'm a little worried about him, but other than that, things are going well.

Peter's Law # 4 - Start at the top then work your way up.

(After finally reading the small text on the poster, I've learned this poster was copyright in 1989 by Peter H Diamandis)

Homework2(finished)

Upon finishing homework 2, I still feel the assignment was not too bad. However, I do know very well that these two assignments were supposed to be easy and just a learning experience to get us prepared for working in groups.  I did learn a bit about perforce through this assignment, such as how merge actually merges and I learned about the branching features.

Peter's Law #3 - "Multiple projects lead to multiple successes."

Homework2 (First Post)

I started on the homework pretty early today, since I realized I don't have any other time to do it but today.  I'm about 1/4th of the way done and it hasn't been causing me any issues.  I'm taking a break to do daily things that people need to do, like shower, eat, etc. then I'll be back at it for as long as it will take me to finish, which will hopefully not be all day.

-Peter's Law #2: "When given a choice - Take Both!"

Homework 1 (Fibonacci) and first thoughts

  The first homework assignment was about as difficult as I assumed it to be, which was not difficult at all.  After a summer of doing nothing my syntax was a little off and therefore the only thing slowing me down during the assignment.  It's always a good confidence builder, in my opinion, when an assignment goes without a hitch, even if it's the really simple assignments.

The other part of the homework (Where's Waldo) was also fairly easy.  I had used piazza and perforce before, Piazza only for A.I. class, and perforce for practically every class it seems.

My main thoughts about the class are just trying to get a feel for what we'll be actually doing.  I'm already trying to mentally prepare myself for the assignments in the future and trying to foresee any issues that would arise before they become a problem.  Other than that, I've not thought much about the class, but I do feel like being able to say I understand how to globally develop software is something that is pretty impressive, which after this class I how I will be able to say and not be a liar.

P.S.  To make these a bit more interesting, I recently dug up an old poster entitled, "Peter's Laws"  I think I'll be quoting laws at the end of these blog posts until I run out. Today's is: "If anything can go wrong, Fix it!(To hell with Murphy!)"