Feedback on Part 1 of the Software Engineering Large Practical

Software Engineering Large Practical

Feedback on Part 1 of the Practical

Stephen Gilmore

School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

November 7th, 2012

Stephen Gilmore Software Engineering Large Practical

About Practical 1

There are 19 people taking the Software Engineering Large
Practical. There were 14 submissions, and 5 non-submisisons.
The submissions have been marked and comments returned.
The submissions varied widely.
Some project submissions contained Java syntax errors and
failed to compile. Some generated warnings. Some generated
neither errors nor warnings.
Some submissions had only limited functionality (e.g. a login
screen). Some read the XML document from the server. Some
created a database.
Some looked more more like a submission for Part 2 than
Part 1.


Lessons learnt

Discovered a bug in the “submit” command which is now
being ﬁxed.
Discovered an underspeciﬁcation in the practical description,
which should explain that we are using Java 1.6 and that Java
1.7 language features are not available (such as strings in
switch statements).


Point of this lecture

Give feedback on the submissions generally, rather than
individually.
Allow you to get a sense of where you are in the class.
See examples of some app designs.
Consider additional features which you might like to
implement.


Java and XML problems, warnings and errors

Errors and warnings encountered are listed here.
These included syntax errors in Java (e.g. missing
semi-colons) and semantic errors (such as “variable not
declared” errors).
Some XML documents were ill-formed (e.g. not a single root
element).
Many uses of generics were not complete, and led to “raw
types”.
Many imports were never used. Some variables were not used.


Java problems: syntax errors


XML errors: “junk after document element”


Java problems: “cannot be resolved” or is not a ﬁeld


XML problems: no resource found


Java problems: generics and raw types

ng


Java problems: imports not used

ng


Unused imports in Java code

ng


Java problems: variables not used

ng


Java problems: Java 1.5/Java 1.6 incompatibility

ng


User interfaces in development

Some submissions had more user interface code than others.
Some had working buttons, menus and textboxes.


Blank screen

png


Alpha version of interface: setting matriculation number

png shot 2012-10-30 at 09.35.44.png


Interface and settings

png shot 2012-10-30 at 10.14.54.png


Interface of alpha version

png shot 2012-10-30 at 13.26.38.png


Entering a student number

png shot 2012-10-30 at 14.04.56.png


Candidate lists in development

Some submissions were able to retrieve the candidate list from
the server and display this.
Some submissions just listed the names of the candidates.
Some included election statements.
Some included photographs of the candidates.


Interace of alpha version — listing candidates

png shot 2012-10-30 at 15.21.16.png


Listing candidates

png shot 2012-10-31 at 13.23.00.png


Sign-in screen — candidates listed

png shot 2012-10-30 at 15.47.56.png


Logging in and viewing candidates

png shot 2012-10-30 at 14.46.34.png


Viewing candidates by category

png shot 2012-10-30 at 14.31.32.png


Additional features in development

The application requires you to retrieve an XML document
from the server.
We can’t be sure that this will always succeed. What if we
have no network connection?


Dealing with network connection issues

png shot 2012-10-30 at 14.34.25.png


Going further: rating, deleting, and sending tweets

The other functions required by the app include rating
favoured candidates, deleting unfavoured candidates, sending
email and sending tweets.


Candidates selected and rated

png shot 2012-10-30 at 15.21.40.png


Rating a candidate and sending a tweet

png shot 2012-10-31 at 13.24.17.png


Viewing details and rating candidates

png shot 2012-10-30 at 14.47.10.png


Deleting a candidate

png shot 2012-10-30 at 14.47.52.png


Database contents


Viewing the database


Database


Examples of good practice

Adding logging to your app early helps you to develop it
because it gives you a deeper understanding of how your app
is working and what is not working.
You are asked to add logging to your app so why not start
now and reap the beneﬁts?


Logging: It’s great! Look how helpful it is.

ng


Logging: why not start now? Seriously, it’s great.

ng


Closing remarks

When implementing your app you should pay careful attention
to the instructions in the practical handout which you received
at the start of the course.
You also have now available a sample XML file with data on
the candidates in the election. Note that this is only a sample,
and not a template.
For example, all of the candidates in the sample XML file had
made three promises but this is not specified by the
regulations so it would be possible for candidates to make
more promises, or fewer.


XML Update: new candidate added, with more promises

ng


End of course lectures

Good luck!


Feedback on Part 1 of the Software Engineering Large Practical

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