This site is not ready yet! The updated version will be available soon.
CS2103/T 2020 Jan-Apr
  • Full Timeline
  • Week 1 [Aug 12]
  • Week 2 [Aug 19]
  • Week 3 [Aug 26]
  • Week 4 [Sep 2]
  • Week 5 [Sep 9]
  • Week 6 [Sep 16]
  • Week 7 [Sep 30]
  • Week 8 [Oct 7]
  • Week 9 [Oct 14]
  • Week 10 [Oct 21]
  • Week 11 [Oct 28]
  • Week 12 [Nov 4]
  • Week 13 [Nov 11]
  • Textbook
  • Admin Info
  • Report Bugs
  • Forum
  • Instructors
  • Announcements
  • File Submissions
  • Tutorial Schedule
  • Java Coding Standard
  • Participation Marks List

  •  Individual Project (iP):
  • Individual Project Info
  • Duke Upstream Repo
  • iP Code Dashboard
  • iP Showcase

  •  Team Project (tP):
  • Team Project Info
  • Team IDs
  • Addressbook-level3
  • Addressbook-level 1,2,4
  • tP Code Dashboard
  • tP Showcase
  • Week 4 [Sep 2] - Project

    iP:

    1. Review some peer PRs
    2. Add increments: A-Gradle,A-CheckStyle, Level-10, A-Varargs

    tP:

    1. Start weekly project meetings
    2. Decide on a overall project direction (user profile, problem addressed) before the tutorial
    3. Start a collaborative doc to take project notes before the tutorial

    iP

    1 Review some peer PRs

    • Review two PRs created by your classmates. PRs can be found here.
      • The allocation of which PRs to review will be specified in this page (you will be notified when the allocation is ready).
      • To find the target PR, you can use a filter author:AuthorUsername e.g., author:johnDoe
      • If the student you have been allocated to review has not created a PR by Monday, you can review another PR of your choice.

    We expect the PR peer-review to be mutually beneficial to the reviewer and the author. i.e., you receive suggestions on how to improve your code, and get to learn alternative designs by reading others' code.

    Guidelines for reviewers:

    • If you are new to GitHub PRs, see GitHub help on how to review PRs.
    • Read the blog post 10 tips for reviewing code you don’t like - by David Lloyd (a Red Hat developer). In particular, follow the tip about phrasing objections as questions.
    • Rather than give one overall comment for the entire PR, add specific comments at relevant places of the code.
    • Comment on coding standard violations.
    • Feel free to ask for more info from the author, to help you understand the code/design. For example, you can ask why the author chose to write the code in a specific way.
    • Feel free to compliment the author when appropriate e.g., hey, I like how clean this bit of code is 👍
    • You can also suggest alternatives for the author to consider. Feel free to refer back to your own PR if you think a comparison would benefit the author. You are very welcome to offer to help the author with the project (in your PR review, or outside of it) if you think the author needs such help i.e., as an informal mentor. Such mentoring will help both the author and you to become stronger programmers.
    • You can use Markdown (specifically, GitHub-Flavored Markdown) in your comments.
    • At the end of the review, we recommend you to choose Comment (i.e., not Approve or Request changes)

    Guidelines for authors:

    • Don't get into arguments with reviewers. If you disagree with the reviewer, you can explain your own view in a non-confrontational way without trying to prove your way is better.
    • Thank reviewers for their inputs.

    • Use the iP Code Dashboard to view others' code: You can now easily view iP code written by classmates, using the Links → iP Code Dashboard item in the top navigation menu. Click on the </>  icon corresponding to a student name to see the code written by that person. We encourage you to read others’ code and learn from them. If you adopt solutions from others (also encouraged), please follow our reuse policy.

    Relevant: [Admin Module Policies → Policy on Reuse ]

    Policy on reuse

    Reuse is encouraged. However, note that reuse has its own costs (such as the learning curve, additional complexity, usage restrictions, and unknown bugs). Furthermore, you will not be given credit for work done by others. Rather, you will be given credit for reusing work done by others.

    • You are allowed to reuse work from your classmates, subject to following conditions:
      • The work has been shared publicly by us or the authors.
      • You clearly give credit to the original author(s).
    • You are allowed to reuse work from external sources, subject to following conditions:
      • The work comes from a source of 'good standing' (such as an established open source project). This means you cannot reuse code written by an outside 'friend'.
      • You clearly give credit to the original author. Acknowledge use of third party resources clearly e.g. in the welcome message, splash screen (if any) or under the 'about' menu. If you are open about reuse, you are less likely to get into trouble if you unintentionally reused something copyrighted.
      • You do not violate the license under which the work has been released. Please  do not use 3rd-party images/audio in your software unless they have been specifically released to be used freely. Just because you found it in the Internet does not mean it is free for reuse.
      • Always get permission from us before you reuse third-party libraries. Please post your 'request to use 3rd party library' in our forum. That way, the whole class get to see what libraries are being used by others.

    Giving credit for reused work

    Given below are how to give credit for things you reuse from elsewhere. These requirements are specific to this module i.e., not applicable outside the module (outside the module you should follow the rules specified by your employer and the license of the reused work)

    If you used a third party library:

    • Mention in the README.adoc (under the Acknowledgements section)
    • mention in the Project Portfolio Page if the library has a significant relevance to the features you implemented

    If you reused code snippets found on the Internet e.g. from StackOverflow answers or
    referred code in another software or
    referred project code by current/past student:

    • If you read the code to understand the approach and implemented it yourself, mention it as a comment
      Example:
      //Solution below adapted from https://stackoverflow.com/a/16252290
      {Your implmentation of the reused solution here ...}
      
    • If you copy-pasted a non-trivial code block (possibly with minor modifications renaming, layout changes, changes to comments, etc.), also mark the code block as reused code (using @@author tags)
      Format:
      //@@author {yourGithubUsername}-reused
      //{Info about the source...}
      
      {Reused code (possibly with minor modifications) here ...}
      
      //@@author
      
      Example of reusing a code snippet (with minor modifications):
      persons = getList()
      //@@author johndoe-reused
      //Reused from https://stackoverflow.com/a/34646172 with minor modifications
      Collections.sort(persons, new Comparator<CustomData>() {
          @Override
          public int compare(CustomData lhs, CustomData rhs) {
              return lhs.customInt > rhs.customInt ? -1 : 0;
          }
      });
      //@@author
      return persons;
      

    Adding @@author tags indicate authorship

    • Mark your code with a //@@author {yourGithubUsername}. Note the double @.
      The //@@author tag should indicates the beginning of the code you wrote. The code up to the next //@@author tag or the end of the file (whichever comes first) will be considered as was written by that author. Here is a sample code file:

      //@@author johndoe
      method 1 ...
      method 2 ...
      //@@author sarahkhoo
      method 3 ...
      //@@author johndoe
      method 4 ...
      
    • If you don't know who wrote the code segment below yours, you may put an empty //@@author (i.e. no GitHub username) to indicate the end of the code segment you wrote. The author of code below yours can add the GitHub username to the empty tag later. Here is a sample code with an empty author tag:

      method 0 ...
      //@@author johndoe
      method 1 ...
      method 2 ...
      //@@author
      method 3 ...
      method 4 ...
      
    • The author tag syntax varies based on file type e.g. for java, css, fxml. Use the corresponding comment syntax for non-Java files.
      Here is an example code from an xml/fxml file.

      <!-- @@author sereneWong -->
      <textbox>
        <label>...</label>
        <input>...</input>
      </textbox>
      ...
      
    • Do not put the //@@author inside java header comments.
      👎

      /**
        * Returns true if ...
        * @@author johndoe
        */
      

      👍

      //@@author johndoe
      /**
        * Returns true if ...
        */
      

    What to and what not to annotate

    • Annotate both functional and test code There is no need to annotate documentation files.

    • Annotate only significant size code blocks that can be reviewed on its own e.g., a class, a sequence of methods, a method.
      Claiming credit for code blocks smaller than a method is discouraged but allowed. If you do, do it sparingly and only claim meaningful blocks of code such as a block of statements, a loop, or an if-else statement.

      • If an enhancement required you to do tiny changes in many places, there is no need to annotate all those tiny changes; you can describe those changes in the Project Portfolio page instead.
      • If a code block was touched by more than one person, either let the person who wrote most of it (e.g. more than 80%) take credit for the entire block, or leave it as 'unclaimed' (i.e., no author tags).
      • Related to the above point, if you claim a code block as your own, more than 80% of the code in that block should have been written by yourself. For example, no more than 20% of it can be code you reused from somewhere.
      • GitHub has a blame feature and a history feature that can help you determine who wrote a piece of code.
    • Do not try to boost the quantity of your contribution using unethical means such as duplicating the same code in multiple places. In particular, do not copy-paste test cases to create redundant tests. Even repetitive code blocks within test methods should be extracted out as utility methods to reduce code duplication. Individual members are responsible for making sure code attributed to them are correct. If you notice a team member claiming credit for code that he/she did not write or use other questionable tactics, you can email us (after the final submission) to let us know.

    • If you wrote a significant amount of code that was not used in the final product,

      • Create a folder called {project root}/unused
      • Move unused files (or copies of files containing unused code) to that folder
      • use //@@author {yourGithubUsername}-unused to mark unused code in those files (note the suffix unused) e.g.
      //@@author johndoe-unused
      method 1 ...
      method 2 ...
      

      Please put a comment in the code to explain why it was not used.

    • If you reused code from elsewhere, mark such code as //@@author {yourGithubUsername}-reused (note the suffix reused) e.g.

      //@@author johndoe-reused
      method 1 ...
      method 2 ...
      
    • You can use empty @@author tags to mark code as not yours when RepoSense attribute the to you incorrectly.

      • Code generated by the IDE/framework, should not be annotated as your own.

      • Code you modified in minor ways e.g. adding a parameter. These should not be claimed as yours but you can mention these additional contributions in the Project Portfolio page if you want to claim credit for them.

    At the end of the project each student is required to submit a Project Portfolio Page.

    PPP Objectives

    • For you to use (e.g. in your resume) as a well-documented data point of your SE experience
    • For evaluators to use as a data point to evaluate your project contributions

    PPP Sections to include

    • Overview: A short overview of your product to provide some context to the reader. The opening 1-2 sentences may be reused by all team members. If your product overview extends beyond 1-2 sentences, the remainder should be written by yourself.
    • Summary of Contributions --Suggested items to include:
      • Code contributed: Give a link to your code on tP Code Dashboard. The link is available in the Project List Page -- linked to the icon under your photo.
      • Features implemented: A summary of the features you implemented. If you implemented multiple features, you are recommended to indicate which one is the biggest feature.
      • Other contributions:
        • Contributions to project management e.g., setting up project tools, managing releases, managing issue tracker etc.
        • Evidence of helping others e.g. responses you posted in our forum, bugs you reported in other team's products,
        • Evidence of technical leadership e.g. sharing useful information in the forum

    Keep in mind that your feature(s) will be evaluated for depth, completeness, and effort. Use the PPP to convince evaluator how good those aspects of your features are.
    It is fine if you want to directly explain each of those aspects of your features in the PPP i.e., how deep the feature is, why it is complete, how hard it was to implement.

    • [Optional] Contributions to the User Guide: Reproduce the parts in the User Guide that you wrote. This can include features you implemented as well as features you propose to implement.
      The purpose of allowing you to include proposed features is to provide you more flexibility to show your documentation skills. e.g. you can bring in a proposed feature just to give you an opportunity to use a UML diagram type not used by the actual features.

    • [Optional] Contributions to the Developer Guide: Reproduce the parts in the Developer Guide that you wrote. Ensure there is enough content to evaluate your technical documentation skills and UML modelling skills. You can include descriptions of your design/implementations, possible alternatives, pros and cons of alternatives, etc.

    • [Optional] If you plan to use the PPP in your Resume, you can also include your SE work outside of the module (will not be graded).

    PPP Format

    PPP Page Limit

    Content Recommended Hard Limit
    Overview + Summary of contributions 0.5-1 2
    [Optional] Contributions to the User Guide 1-3
    [Optional] Contributions to the Developer Guide 3-6
    • The page limits given above are after converting to PDF format. The actual amount of content you require is actually less than what these numbers suggest because the HTML → PDF conversion adds a lot of spacing around content.


    2 Add increments: A-Gradle,A-CheckStyle, Level-10, A-Varargs

    • Add the following increments. As before, do each enhancement in a separate branch and merge to the master branch only when ready (if you push incomplete features into the master branch, it can confuse others reviewing your PR).
      If you have completed any of them in previous weeks, just add the corresponding tag (no need to create a branch).
    A-Gradle: Gradle

    A-Gradle

         Automate project builds using Gradle

    Use Gradle to automate some of the build tasks of the project. Refer to the Gradle tutorial at the Duke repo (i.e., the repo you forked from) to find how to set up Gradle for your project.

    • Minimal: Set up gradle so that you can build and run Duke using gradle.
    • Recommended: Set up gradle to run unit tests.
    • Stretch Goal: Use gradle to automate more things in your project.
    A-CheckStyle: CheckStyle optional

    A-CheckStyle

         Use CheckStyle

    Use checkStyle to detect coding style violations.

    If you are using Gradle for your project, refer to the Gradle tutorial at the Duke repo (i.e., the repo you forked from) to find how to use CheckStyle via Gradle. Alternatively, you can try the CheckStyle plugin for Intellij.

    A-Gradle

         Automate project builds using Gradle

    Use Gradle to automate some of the build tasks of the project. Refer to the Gradle tutorial at the Duke repo (i.e., the repo you forked from) to find how to set up Gradle for your project.

    • Minimal: Set up gradle so that you can build and run Duke using gradle.
    • Recommended: Set up gradle to run unit tests.
    • Stretch Goal: Use gradle to automate more things in your project.

    Level-10: GUI

    Level 10. GUI

    Add a GUI to Duke.

    When implementing this feature, you are also recommended to implement the following extension as collections classes (e.g., ArrayList) have methods to easily delete an item at a specified location:

    A-JavaFx

         use JavaFX

    Use JavaFX to create a GUI. Refer to the JavaFX tutorials at the Duke repo (i.e., the repo you forked from) to learn how to get started.

    A-Varargs: Varargs if-applicable

    A-Varargs

         Use var-args

    Use Java varargs feature, if applicable.




    tP: Inception

    Given below are some guidance on the recommended progress at this point of the project

    1 Start weekly project meetings

    • We recommend you start weekly project meetings now. You can use the meeting to do tP tasks, but also help each other do iP tasks. On a related note, it is also acceptable to discuss weekly post-lecture quiz together with team members as you do the quiz i.e., discuss and decide the answer collectively, but you should not give away your answers to someone who was not part of that discussion.

    2 Decide on a overall project direction (user profile, problem addressed)

    • Learn about the tP

    Relevant: [Admin tP: Overview ]

    The high-level learning outcome of the project (and to a large degree, the entire module):

    Can contribute production quality SE work to a small/medium software project

    Accordingly, the module project is structured to resemble an intermediate stage of a non-trivial real-life software project. In this project you will,

    1. conceptualize and implement enhancements to a given product, and,
    2. have it ready to be continued by future developers.

    Relevant: [Admin tP: Product ]

    In this semester, we are going to enhance an AddressBook application.

    This product is meant for users who can type fast, and prefer typing over mouse/voice commands. Therefore, Command Line Interface (CLI) is the primary mode of input.

    Relevant: [Admin tP Contstraints → More info about the 'CLI app' requirement ]

    • Recommendation-CLI-First Following from the Constraint-Typing-Preferred, if the app is optimized for the target user (graded under the product design criterion), a user who can type fast should be able to accomplish most tasks faster via CLI, compared to a hypothetical GUI-only version of the app. For example, adding a new entity via the CLI should be faster than entering the same data through a GUI form.
      Therefore, the input to the app needs to be primarily CLI. The GUI is used primarily to give visual feedback to the user. While we don't prohibit non-CLI inputs, note that such inputs will reduce the suitability of the product to target users. Therefore, give CLI alternatives to mouse/GUI inputs, if applicable.
      Also keep in mind:
      • Regular typing is usually faster than using key combinations.
      • One-shot commands are faster over multi-step commands. If you provide a multi-step command to help new users, you can also provide a one-shot equivalent for regular/expert users.

    • Decide project direction, target user profile, and problem addressed before the tutorial

      Use your first project meeting to discuss with your team members and decide your project direction, target user profile, and the value proposition of the product, as described in the panels below:

    Relevant: [Admin tP: Scope ]

    project expectations

    Project Direction

    In general, each team is expected to take one of these two directions:
    • [Direction 1] Optimize AddressBook for a more specific target user group:

      An AddressBook,

      • for users in a specific profession e.g. doctors, salesmen, teachers, etc.
      • based on the nature/scale of contacts e.g. huge number of contacts (for HR admins, user group admins), mostly incomplete contacts, highly volatile contact details, contacts become inactive after a specific period (e.g. contract employees)
      • based on what users do with the contacts e.g. organize group events, share info, do business, do analytics

    • [Direction 2] Morph AddressBook into a different product: Given that AddressBook is a generic app that manages a type of elements (i.e. contacts), you can use it as a starting point to create an app that manages something else.

      An app to manage,

      • Bookmarks of websites
      • Tasks/Schedule
      • Location info
      • Thing to memorize i.e. flash cards, trivia
      • Forum posts, news feeds, Social media feeds
      • Online projects or issue trackers that the user is interested in
      • Emails, possibly from different accounts
      • Multiple types of related things e.g. Contacts and Tasks (if Tasks are allocated to Contacts)

    Note that both directions are equally acceptable.

    For either direction, you need to define a target user profile and a value proposition:

    • Target user profile: Define a very specific target user profile.
      We require you to narrow down the target user profile as opposed to trying to make it as general as possible. Here is an example direction of narrowing down target user: anybody → teachers → university teachers → tech savvy university teachers → CS2103/T instructors.

      Be careful not to contradict given project constraints when defining the user profile e.g. the target user should still prefer typing over mouse actions.

      It is expected that your product will be optimized for the chosen target users i.e., add features that are especially/only applicable for target users (to make the app especially attractive to them). w.r.t. the example above, there can be features that are applicable to CS2103/T instructors only, such as the ability to navigate to a student's project on GitHub
      Your project will be graded based on how well the features match the target user profile and how well the features fit-together.

      • It is an opportunity to exercise your product design skills because optimizing the product to a very specific target user requires good product design skills.
      • It minimizes the overlap between features of different teams which can cause plagiarism issues. Furthermore, higher the number of other teams having the same features, less impressive your work becomes especially if others have done a better job of implementing that feature.

    • Value proposition: Define a clear value proposition (what problem does the product solve? how does it make the the user's life easier?) that matches the target user profile.

    Individual Expectations

    [Individual] Expectations on Enhancements
    • You are expected to enhance the product in some way(s). User-visible enhancements are preferred, but it is not a strict requirement. Some examples:
    * Add a new feature %%e.g. add the ability to view statistics%% * Enhance an existing features in a major way %%e.g. make the command syntax more user friendly and closer to natural language%% * A redesign of the GUI %%e.g. make it work like a chat application (note: chat is a form of CLI)%% * A redesign of the code %%e.g. Improve the design to improve the code quality.%%

    • The enhancement(s) should fit with the rest of the software (and the target user profile) and should have the consent of the team members. You will lose marks if you go 'rogue' and add things that don't fit with the product.

    Tips:

    Contribute to all aspects of the project e.g. write backend code, frontend code, test code, user documentation, and developer documentation. Reason: If you limit yourself to certain aspects only, you could lose marks allocated for the aspects you did not do. In addition, the final exam assumes that you are familiar with all aspects of the project.

    Do all the work related to your enhancement yourself. Reason:If there is no clear division of who did which enhancement, it will be difficult to divide project credit (or assign responsibility for bugs detected by testers) later.

    Divide the components of the product among team members. Notwithstanding the above, you are still expected to divide the components of the product among team members so that each team member is in charge of one or more components. While others will be modifying those components as necessary for the features they are implementing, your role as the in charge of a component is to guide others modifying that component (reason: you are supposed to be the most knowledgeable about that component) and protect that component from degrading e.g., you can review others' changes to your component and suggest possible changes.

    • How much code to write? The project grade depends on the value you added, as perceived by evaluators (i.e., team members, peer evaluators, and tutors) as well as other factors such as the quality of the code. As such, there is no strong correlation between the LoC and the grade. For instance, in a recent semester, a student who wrote 500 LoC of functional code (i.e., excluding test code and documentation) was able to reach top 20% (in terms of project marks), another who wrote 900 LoC reached the top 10%, while another who wrote more than 5000 LoC ended up in the bottom 10%. Also see the the percentiles of functional LoC written by that batch of students, given below:
      Percentile 25 50 75
      LoC ~1000 ~1500 ~2500
    [Individual] Expectations on Documentation
    • You are expected to write user documentation and developer documentation for your features.
    • The objective is to showcase your ability to write the two types of documentation. If the documentation for your features is not enough to meet that objective, or does not reach the following minimal requirement, you can make up the shortfall by documenting 'proposed' features and alternative designs/implementations.
      • Contribution to the user guide: 1 page
      • Contribution to the developer guide: 3 pages
    • You are expected to showcase your ability to use the various UML diagrams (at least 2 types). As mentioned in the previous point, if the documentation of your features doesn't give you enough opportunities to do so e.g., your features only required minor updates to existing diagrams, you are expected to create those opportunities yourself by documenting proposed features or alternative designs. Evaluators will not be able to give you marks unless there is sufficient evidence of your documentation skills.
    • You are required to update the entire UG and DG to match your product. However, there is no need to update other documents such as tutorials that are AB3 specific.
    [Individual] Expectations on Testing
    • There is no requirement for a minimum coverage level. Note that in a production environment you are often required to have at least 90% of the code covered by tests. In this project, it can be less. The less coverage you have, the higher the risk of regression bugs, which will cost marks if not fixed before the final submission.
    • You must write some tests so that we can evaluate your ability to write tests.
    • How much of each type of testing should you do? We expect you to decide. You learned different types of testing and what they try to achieve. Based on that, you should decide how much of each type is required. Similarly, you can decide to what extent you want to automate tests, depending on the benefits and the effort required.
    [Individual] Expectations on Teamwork

    Team-tasks are the tasks that someone in the team has to do. Marks allocated to team-tasks will be divided among team members based on how much each member contributed to those tasks.

    Here is a non-exhaustive list of team-tasks:

    1. Necessary general code enhancements e.g.,
      1. Work related to renaming the product
      2. Work related to changing the product icon
      3. Morphing the product into a different product
    2. Setting up the GitHub, Travis, AppVeyor, etc.
    3. Maintaining the issue tracker
    4. Release management
    5. Updating user/developer docs that are not specific to a feature e.g. documenting the target user profile
    6. Incorporating more useful tools/libraries/frameworks into the product or the project workflow (e.g. automate more aspects of the project workflow using a GitHub plugin)

    Roles indicate aspects you are in charge of and responsible for. E.g., if you are in charge of documentation, you are the person who should allocate which parts of the documentation is to be done by who, ensure the document is in right format, ensure consistency etc.

    This is a non-exhaustive list; you may define additional roles.

    • Team lead: Responsible for overall project coordination.
    • Documentation (short for ‘in charge of documentation’): Responsible for the quality of various project documents.
    • Testing: Ensures the testing of the project is done properly and on time.
    • Code quality: Looks after code quality, ensures adherence to coding standards, etc.
    • Deliverables and deadlines: Ensure project deliverables are done on time and in the right format.
    • Integration: In charge of versioning of the code, maintaining the code repository, integrating various parts of the software to create a whole.
    • Scheduling and tracking: In charge of defining, assigning, and tracking project tasks.
    • [Tool ABC] expert: e.g. Intellij expert, Git expert, etc. Helps other team member with matters related to the specific tool.
    • In charge of[Component XYZ]: e.g. In charge of Model, UI, Storage, etc. If you are in charge of a component, you are expected to know that component well, and review changes done to that component in v1.3-v1.4.

    Please make sure each of the important roles are assigned to one person in the team. It is OK to have a 'backup' for each role, but for each aspect there should be one person who is unequivocally the person responsible for it.

    Team Expectations

    1. Preserve product integrity: i.e. ensure,
      1. features fit together to form a cohesive product,
      2. documentation follows a consistent style and presents a cohesive picture to the reader, and
      3. final project demo presents a cohesive picture to the audience.
    2. Maintain product quality: i.e. prevent breaking other parts of the product as it evolves. Note that bugs local to a specific feature will be counted against the author of that feature. However, if a new enhancement breaks the entire product, the whole team will have to share the penalty.
    3. Manage the project: i.e. ensure workflow, code maintenance, integration, releases, etc. are done smoothly.

    Relevant: [Admin tP: Constraints ]

    Your project should comply with the following constraints. Reason: to increase comparability among projects and to maximize applicability of module learning outcomes in the project.

    • Constraint-Brownfield The final product should be a result of evolving/enhancing/morphing the given code base. However, you are allowed to replace all existing code with new code, as long as it is done incrementally. e.g. one feature/component at a time
      Reason: To ensure your code has a decent quality level from the start.

    • Constraint-Typing-Preferred The product should be targeting users who can type fast and prefer typing over other means of input.
      Reason: to increase comparability of products, and to make feature evaluation easier for peer evaluators.

    • Constraint-Single-User The product should be for a single user i.e. (not a multi-user product).
      Reason: multi-user systems are hard to test, which is unfair for peer testers who will be graded based on the number of bugs they find.

    • Constraint-Incremental The product needs to be developed incrementally over the project duration. While it is fine to do less in some weeks and more in other weeks, a reasonably consistent delivery rate is expected. For example, it is not acceptable to do the entire project over the recess week and do almost nothing for the remainder of the semester.
      Reasons: 1. To simulate a real project where you have to work on a code base over a long period, possibly with breaks in the middle. 2. To learn how to deliver big features in small increments.

    • Constraint-Human-Editable-File The data should be stored locally and should be in a human editable text file.
      Reason: To allow advanced users to manipulate the data by editing the data file.

    • Constraint-No-DBMS Do not use a DBMS to store data.
      Reason: Using a DBMS to store data will reduce the room to apply OOP techniques to manage data. It is true that most real world systems use a DBMS, but given the small size of this project, we need to optimize it for CS2103/T module learning outcomes; covering DBMS-related topics will have to be left to database modules or level 3 project modules.

    • Constraint-OO The software should follow the Object-oriented paradigm primarily (but you are allowed to mix in a bit other styles when justifiable).
      Reason: For you to practice using OOP in a non-trivial project.

    • Constraint-Platform-Independent The software should work on the Windows, Linux, and OS-X platforms. Even if you are unable to manually test the app on all three platforms, consciously avoid using OS-dependent libraries and OS-specific features.
      Reason: Peer testers should be able to use any of these platforms.

    • Constraint-Java-Version The software should work on a computer that has version 11 of Java i.e., no other Java version installed.

    • Constraint-Portable The software should work without requiring an installer.
      Reason: Testers may not want to install your product on their computer.

    • Constraint-No-Remote-Server The software should not depend on your own remote server.
      Reason: Anyone should be able to use/test your app any time, even after the semester is over.

    • Constraint-External-Software The use of third-party frameworks/libraries is allowed but only if they,

      • are free, open-source, and have permissive license terms (E.g., trial version of libraries that require purchase after N days are not allowed).
      • do not require any installation by the user of your software.
      • do not violate other constraints.

      and is subjected to prior approval by the teaching team.
      Reason: We will not allow third-party software that can interfere with the learning objectives of the module.

      Please post in the forum your request to use a third-party libraries before you start using the library. Once a specific library has been approved for one team, other teams may use it without requesting permission again.
      Reason: The whole class should know which external software are used by others so that they can do the same if they wish to.

    In addition, you are strongly encouraged to follow these recommendations as they can help increase your project score.

    • Recommendation-Minimal-Network It is OK to use a reliable public API e.g., Google search but we recommend that you have a fallback mechanism (e.g., able to load data using a data file if the network is down).
      Reason: During the mass peer-testing session, the network access can be intermittent due to high load. If your feature cannot be tested due to lack of Internet, that will have to be counted as a major bug, to be fair to those whose app is being tested and bugs found being penalized.
      If you use NUS data (e.g., scrape data from an NUS website), please work with NUS IT directly to get their approval first. Even well-intentioned use of NUS data without approval can get you into serious trouble (has happened before). The teaching team will not be able to get approval for you as the use of NUS data is not a module requirement.

    • Recommendation-Testability Avoid implementing hard-to-test (both for manual testing as well as automated testing) features or features that make your product hard-to-test.
      Reason: testability is a grading criterion. If you choose to implement such a feature, you will need to spend an extra effort to reach an acceptable level of testability. Here are some examples of features that are hard-to-test:

      • Features that depend heavily on remote APIs: Those APIs can block your access if they mistake your automated tests as a bot attack. Some remote APIs require setting up accounts, keys, login etc, that will irritate the testers of your product and give a low rating to the testability of your work.
      • Audio-related features: The peer testing of your product is done under exam conditions where it is not appropriate to play audio.
      • Features that require creating user accounts.
    • Recommendation-CLI-First Following from the Constraint-Typing-Preferred, if the app is optimized for the target user (graded under the product design criterion), a user who can type fast should be able to accomplish most tasks faster via CLI, compared to a hypothetical GUI-only version of the app. For example, adding a new entity via the CLI should be faster than entering the same data through a GUI form.
      Therefore, the input to the app needs to be primarily CLI. The GUI is used primarily to give visual feedback to the user. While we don't prohibit non-CLI inputs, note that such inputs will reduce the suitability of the product to target users. Therefore, give CLI alternatives to mouse/GUI inputs, if applicable.
      Also keep in mind:
      • Regular typing is usually faster than using key combinations.
      • One-shot commands are faster over multi-step commands. If you provide a multi-step command to help new users, you can also provide a one-shot equivalent for regular/expert users.

    If you are not sure if your product complies with a certain constraint/recommendation, please seek clarification by posting in the forum (preferred) or emailing the supervisor.

    Relevant: [Admin tP: Grading → Criteria Used for Grading the Product Design ]

    1. Project Grading: Product Design [/ 5 marks]

    Evaluates: how well your features fit together to form a cohesive product (not how many features or how big the features are) and how well does it match the target user

    Evaluated by:

    • tutors (based on product demo and user guide)
    • peers from other teams (based on peer testing and user guide)

    For reference, here are some grading instructions given to evaluators:

    Evaluate the product design based on the User Guide and the actual product behavior.

    Target user:

    • target user specified and appropriate: The target user is clearly specified, prefers typing over other modes of input, and not too general (should be narrowed to a specific user group with certain characteristics).
    • value specified and matching: The value offered by the product is clearly specified and matches the target user.
    • optimized for the target user: It feels like a fast typist can be more productive with the app, compared to an equivalent GUI app without a CLI.

    Value to the target user:

    In addition, feature flaws reported in the PE will be considered when grading this aspect.

    These will be considered feature flaws:
    The feature does not solve the stated problem of the intended user i.e., the feature is 'incomplete'
    Hard-to-test features
    Features that don't fit well with the product
    Features that are not optimized enough for fast-typists or target users

    3 Start a collaborative doc to take project notes before the tutorial

    • We recommend keeping project notes in easy-to-use collaborative docs such as GoogleDocs/sheets. Document the decisions taken above in one of those docs.