COMP 310
Spring 201
7

Design Process Overall Guidelines

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Design is a collaborative group process involving the inputs from many viewpoints, the weighing of pros and cons of all those viewpoints and the construction of a agreed-upon compromise that balances those concerns.

The following is a description of the overall structure and process in which class-wide design activities will be performed in the course.   There will be multiple design activities that are run, so this design process will be repeated each time.

The class will be divided into several large groups that will each work out a version of the inter-computer application programming interface ("API") that will govern the communications between connected computers.   Each large group will be further divided in to subgroups that will tackle specific areas of the API.

In this course, the design process will be evaluated in terms of participation in the process, NOT on the "correctness" of the solution.

 

Overall Process:

DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT!

Organize Working Sub-groups

  1. Elect one of the HW teams to be the group leader.   The group leader team is not required to perform other tasks.
    1. Record the group leader team name in the wiki.
    2.  The group leader responsibilities include:
      • Make sure that all aspects of the API are covered
      • Identify where the APIs proposed by the subgroups are incompatible with each other
      • Ensure that all sub-groups have completed their tasks.
      • Ensure that all documentation is complete -- note that each subgroup should be writing up their own documentation!  
  2. Create subgroups from the remaining members.   The number of subgroups should equal the number of API design tasks.
    1. All sub-group assignments will be by HW assignment teams (pairs/triplets).   The HW teams should not be broken up.
    2. Assign API design tasks to each subgroup
    3. Record in task assignments in the wiki

  Design Process

  1. For each sub-group:
    1. Create Use Cases
      1. On the wiki, write down as many scenarios as possible that involve the assigned API section
        • Include both success and failure scenarios
        • Record all questions, concerns and ideas as they come up.  
        • Restrict your scenarios to just the assigned API section!  
          • Simply assume that the rest of the API processes exist and work.
          • If necessary, clearly state any assumptions being made about the state of the system or available data with respect to the rest of the API.   Resist the urge to work in tandem with the other subgroups!   Differences will be worked out later!    (Team leaders note: record any differences you see so that they can be addressed later.)
      2. Use Creately to generate a Use Case diagram for just the assigned part of the API section. Link to the diagram from the wiki.
        • Break the use cases down into as fine detail as possible.
        • Focus on actions, not method calls.
        • Remember that an arrow in a Use Case diagram means that one use case is composed of other use cases, not that one use case follows the other!
          • Number the arrows if necessary to indicate a temporal order in the composition of use cases.
      3. DO NOT CREATE CLASSES OR METHODS AT THIS STAGE!!
    2. Identify data elements being transferred in use cases
      • Address given questions regarding particular data types (see wiki).   Document group conclusions!
      • Just the data that is actually transferred from one computer to another
      • Focus on flexibility and extensibility
    3. Identify interfaces, classes and methods corresponding to use cases
      • Address given questions regarding particular entities (see wiki).  Document group conclusions!
      • Just the interfaces and classes that need to be common across computers
      • Focus on flexibility and extensibility
  2. Presentation of API proposals by groups
    1. Team leader to give overall picture and goals of proposed API ONLY.
    2. Individual parts of API to be described by members of assigned subgroup
  3. Class discussion
  4. Reformulation of API proposals by each group
  5. Presentation of reformulated proposals by groups
    1. Team leader to describe high level view of changes that where made.
    2. Individual parts of API to be presented by members of assigned subgroup that did not present previously
      • Detail exactly what and why changes where made
  6. Class discussion

 

Design Tips

 

Evaluation

"Completeness" includes and is not limited to documentation of all issues, scenarios, use cases, protocols and interface/class/method definitions.

 

 

 

 

 


© 2017 by Stephen Wong