Re: [Takeaction-devel] Take Action Update.

[Mike S. <ms...@ne...>]

Hello Mike, Peter-

Justin's gone for the weekend, so I'll be standing in for him in the 
interim. He had a reply for you, which I've appended to the end of this 
e-mail.

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Peter Bojanic wrote:
> After you're done this course, I highly recommend you read about the
> Rational Unified Method, Extreme Programming, or any of the other Agile
> development methodologies out there today.

I've found that extreme programming works really well on our less 
regimented assignments in other courses where we have one or more 
partners. The code is of higher quality and it drastically cuts debugging 
time. Although, it is a little tricky to get partners together in a 
college environment for coding sessions; going home to code means access 
to chips & beer.

> I'd really like to teach a course on XP or RUP! What does it take to
> teach a course at Algonquin?

They could certainly use it. I'll ask the Comp Sci course coordinator for 
you. The cirriculum changes very slowly from term to term and much of 
what's being taught is practically archaic. Only just now (but too late 
for our group) have they split the project course stream into three parts 
rather than two, so that they can include some more relevent material.

> I do urge you to take the feedback regarding RUP, XP, and Agile back to
> your department. Strict waterfall doesn't work effectively (as you can
> see in this case) and it doesn't do students justice to teach it. There
> are better methods to learn that will provide future students with
> significantly more learning value.

I agree entirely.
The waterfall method didn't even look good on paper or in the lectures. 
Case in point: Over the summer, I wrote an interconnectivity component 
for the government (Agriculture Canada). The one place I'd expect such a 
rigid software development cycle, and even they think it's outdated.
I wound up with a set of requirements and a rapid prototyping cycle 
implimenting those requirements. 

There have been a few times that I've come away with so little from a 
course and actually contemplated demanding a refund from the college, but 
never thought I'd get very far with it... but I'm going off track, so I'll 
just cut this message here and give you Justin's.

	Mike


Justin's message follows:
-----
Mike, Peter:

Yes, I did enjoy my summer, thanks for asking, although, working full time 
through it isn`t as enjoyable as the goold old "high school" days when it 
was three months off. :)

Thank you for letting us know that the existing code is in Back-End and 
CUPE. We haven`t yet searched through for any code that applies to Take 
Action, but we will do so soon.

(I've started going through it as time allows, though the professors are 
showing no mercy regarding project obligations; they just piled the 
coursework on in the 1st week. -Mike S.)

>I do think that there will be enough work to keep you busy and within
>scope..  If you run into having more time, stress testing, in-line
>documentation, user documentation and other campaign tracking tools can
>be developed.

Yes, we agree. We have discussed the situation with our academic advisor 
(as I mentioned in my last e-mail). His stance is that whatever we can fit 
into the Analysis document will be what we officially submit as the 
project. I believe he set this as a limit because we must submit a signed 
Analysis document by Friday September 5. As this deadline is rapidly 
approaching, it will be a challenge for us to include more than just a few 
more features. We are working right now on sticking in the new e-mail 
Verification feature (send e-mail to user, user must reply), the Site 
Referral Information (points system), and the cookies.


Peter,

>I'd really like to teach a course on XP or RUP! What does it take to
>teach a course at Algonquin?

We`re still trying to figure that one out. ;)

>Perhaps we can meet with the school together. It seems the customer
>should be present at a meeting that will determine the future course of
>this project.

While we have already met with them, we agree that the client should have 
open communication with the college; I will ask the advisors again if they 
can open a time slot to meet with us.


>I think this project is too large for your team to design and build from
>scratch in the timeframe you've got. If this is strictly an education
>exercise then we can continue to provide you with some feedback and you
>can build whatever you need to satisfy your course requirements.

As a group of students, we feel that we have been projected into a world 
that we know little about, and have been given tools that don`t fit all 
the situations we are facing. This is definitely an educational exercise, 
in that it is something none of us have done before. That being the case, 
we can refer to the educational exercises of the past three years of our 
college courses, in which we have completed successfully. While this is 
much different from theory courses, we feel that we will be successful in 
completing the workload - the project - the system as it is currently 
outlined in the Statement of Scope and the Analysis document.

>However, if delivering value to your customer is actually party of the
>gig, I recommend you focus on a few important features and implement
>these within the existing Back-End Actions framework. This would truly
>provide value to OpenConcept and the Back-End community and
>(importantly), it will allow your team to focus on achievable goals.

While a commerical industry`s foremost goal would be delivering value to 
the customer, we are forced to balance this with doing it the way the 
college wants us to. I can appreciate that this means we will not deliver 
as complex a system as an industry would, however we are also aware that 
your business itself will be making use of the system and therefore it is 
useful for the system to include the business' required features.

Our main priority right now is to finish the document set required to 
proceed with the project. While the Analysis document of last term was on 
the heavy side, we feel our group is functioning much more fluently now, 
and our documentation will be produced much quicker. If we finish the main 
project early, which we intend to do, we then can implement extra 
features. I can't speak for my group in this regard, but I personally 
intend to volunteer my time to do this, once we have completed the project 
as defined in the Statement of Scope, and where I have time before 
starting the next school term. Please understand that we wish the best of 
this project, and will do our best to ensure it succeeds.

(I also intend to continue contributing after the project ends. This tool 
is really needed if people are going to be heard over career lobbyists. 
-Mike S.)


>Let me know what you think. If Mike is willing, I'd be happy to meet
>with your professor and/or with the head of your faculty to discuss the
>project further.