[xmlWiki-developers] Oct 8 Meeting Minutes/Other Items

[Arnaldo C. <ar...@mi...>]

All,
    First, a quick summary of our decisions from Monday night:
{October 8th Meeting Minutes}
MEETING TIMES
-->Monday nights at 8PM CST are now our *official* weekly meeting times =
during which all group members have decided to be in attendance.  Be =
there or be seriously out of the loop. :)  We also discussed making a =
concerted effort to shorten the Monday night meetings.
-->In addition to that, we intend to simulate some of the XP ideals of =
working closely together by:
    a) Having a general rule that anyone is free and encouraged to log =
onto our chat room at 8PM CST any night to meet informally with whoever =
shows up.
    b) To simulate a shared office space, any time any team member is =
doing work (coding, etc.) on the project, we decided that he/she should =
log into our chat area.  (For example, I'm logged into our chat area as =
I write this email.)
SYSTEM METAPHOR
-->After a discussion of different options, we decided that we could =
almost just go with the naive metaphor, and decided that our system =
metaphor would be "a publically updatable web site". (very nearly the =
so-called "naive metaphor") Basically, we all think we have some =
understanding of what a Wiki is, so hopefully the issue of needing to =
establish a common frame of reference/vocabulary won't be as much of an =
issue on this project as it is on others.
OTHER ITEMS DISCUSSED
-->We discussed/assigned roles in the previous meeting =
(http://xmlwiki.sourceforge.net/people.html), and were thinking of =
defining them even more precisely in this meeting.  But, after group =
discussion, we decided that getting *too* precise in our role =
definitions would be against the spirit of the "everybody owns =
everything" spirit of XP.
-->We also had a good "what everyone wants out of this project" =
discussion.  To paint with a broom, most people expressed that they =
wanted:  a) a good grade  b) a good product  c) a good learning =
experience.
-->Hugo was unable to attend the meeting.  He contacted me and let me =
know he had some personal things come up.  But he also said that he =
would get back to us all by direct communication, or by updating the =
wiki and/or website.

 {other issues to chew on before the next meeting}
SYSTEM METAPHOR
Something I missed about the system metaphor is that it's supposed to be =
a paragraph or two long (nothing too fancy, like everything else in XP =
but the final product).  So, perhaps the metaphor needs to be fleshed =
out a little bit.  Any takers?  If so, go to =
http://wiki.cs.uiuc.edu/SEcourse/xmlWiki+System+Metaphor and type what =
you think.  The group can review/modify your work if needed.
FINAL ARTIFACTS
Another item that we discussed was, "What exactly are we supposed to =
turn in at the end of the semester?"  Well, I emailed Andrew, and he =
said:
"Well, last year it was actually up to the students what to submit.

Some good artifacts for XP groups:

your code
some UML diagrams explaining it
meeting logs
programming logs
some personal reflections on what worked and what didn't"
So, there you have it; it's up to us.  So, we'll talk about what =
specifically we intend to turn in this coming Monday night.
COURSE STAFF ADVICE
If you haven't seen it yet, it's probably worthwhile to check out the =
newly posted http://wiki.cs.uiuc.edu/SEcourse/XP+Best+Practices , where =
the course staff gives advice on what XP project groups should do.  We =
should perhaps think about how to implement some of these ideas in an =
geographically distributed manner.
PAIR PROGRAMMING
For this last HW (3&4) Chris Heistad and I worked together.  We had =
great success with Microsoft Netmeeting as a tool for "Pair =
Diagramming", and it seems that it would probably work just as well for =
pair programming.  I think that Pair Programming is at the heart of XP, =
and our experience with NetMeeting seems to me a strong indication that =
Pair Programming could work just as well for our group as it could for =
any other.  (Chris, please voice your agreement or disagreement. :) )
TEAM-BUILDING AND HWs
I have an idea for people to consider before our next meeting.  Chris =
and I pretty well "bonded" as teammates during HW3/4.  I understand that =
other people in our group have paired off together to work on HWs as =
well.  Who would be up for switching around partners if the course staff =
indicates that the next HW is able to be done in groups as well?  =
Disadvantage:  This would mean that one person always has to do the HW =
alone, since there's 7 of us, but perhaps the course staff will broaden =
the number of potential people per group to 3.  Advantage:  Enhanced =
team cohesion.

As always, if you feel that I've missed (or misrepresented) something =
that went on in our last meeting, please let me know, and I'll send out =
a correction ASAP.  Don't hesitate to conact me with any questions or =
comments that I should send to the course staff.
--Arnaldo