Software Engineering Experience

Taking this course really helped me mature as a developer. I learned so much in just one semester. The thing that I liked the most in this class is that we worked on real world applications unlike ICS 111 and 211. Another aspect of the course that I liked is the collaboration of students. In the past we were not supposed to share our work with other student in class. This course is proof that two minds are better than one. It's good to work with other people once in a while. I think it's a win-win situation because everybody gains from collaborating with each other.

I mentioned that collaboration is the best part of this course for me. I've met some awesome people and I'm glad that I was paired up with them. Even though there were times where it was really tough for us working late at night at Sinclair, we were able to keep the morale up high. The tools that were introduced to us in this course will be really helpful in the future as a developer. Version control like SVN and software ICU are some of my favorites. I'm actually looking forward for the next level of this class.

-David Joel Lazaro

Ecologineers v2.1

Our web application has come a long way since version 1.0. We've done a lot of bug fixes and added a couple of new pages that gives user's useful information. One of the pages we've added was the Home page. This is simply an introduction of our web application and what the other pages does. The second page that we added is the StopLight page. This page provides the user information depending on the carbon intensity of SIM_OAHU_GRID. It has four categories, green, yellow, red, and no data. This gives the user an idea of when they should be plugging their devices to the outlet. The third page is just a modified version 1.0 grid info page that displays the carbon intensity chart for SIM_OAHU_GRID. The user can now select a start and end date for the time period that they want a chart generated for. The user can also select from a pull down menu SIM_OAHU_GRID's sub-sources.

We tried to implement some extra credit features to our web application. One of them is the addition of nice urls for the links. Instead of the wicket gibberish url that it displays in the address bar, it now shows a nice bookmark-able link that is easier to remember. This means that the StopLight page is now called "stoplight" and the GridInfo page is now called "gridinfo" in the address bar of our browser. We also added an ajax page refresh for the StopLight page. What it does is it refreshes the page every minute so that it can update the users quickly instead of waiting for another hour to manually refresh the page.

Working on this application thought me some valuable lessons. It's clear that one person can only do so much. After trying to implement something for hours, I had to walk away from it and pass it to one of my group members. It's also nice to learn something new. The wicket framework can be really useful if I continue to learn it.

To try our updated web application, click here.

-David Joel Lazaro

GreenDepot Review

In summary, GreenDepot is on the right direction and just needs to fix some major bugs to get their application running smoothly. Right now the application is dependent of Ant. I would check the jar.build.xml to see if it's compiling the needed components for the system to run. I also suggest that a separate session class be created for getting and setting user input. Software ICU and Continuous Integration data shows that the group was working on it consistently. To view my full review, click on the link below.

GreenDepotReview

-David Joel Lazaro

Ecologineers Wicket Application

After working on WattDepot, it's time to put it in practical use by building a web application that can take advantage of it. We had to build a wicket application that shows the carbon intensity of a certain day. Our group name is Ecologineers. My partners for this project were Paul Galiza, Shaun Ramento, and Jarret Mizo.

Overall I believe that the project went well. Everybody did what they can to contribute to the project. We helped each other out when one needed help. The only thing I observed that got in our way of working on this project was our other class works. Me and Paul have midterms and C++ homework to work on. Meanwhile, Jarret and I also had some lab report to do for our networking course. I think we got most of the job done because we were always able to meet and work on the project as a group.



As for the current state of our application, our group was able to implement most of the requirements. We just couldn't tackle a couple of bugs due to time limit. One of the things that doesn't work is the color coding of the table in the webpage. It shows the text Red, Green, and Yellow instead of the actual color. We only need some more input validation in our date entry forms. Our system could also use some more test cases as you can tell from our hackystat image above. There were times where the system wasn't touched at all because we had other stuff to do. But when we do work on it, we all do it together as a group.

Click here to download and try our wicket application.

-David Joel Lazaro

WattDepot Ekahi Version 2.0

This assignment enabled us to correct the mistakes we made in the first version of our WattDepot system. Armed with better knowledge after being reviewed by our peers, our group made sure that the second version of our system is way better than the first. The main fix that we had to do was refactoring our code and break it up in different classes for each commands. Doing this enabled us to clean up the system. It also made test cases easier to do because we now have each commands return something rather than being void.

After doing the refactoring, we were able to implement the commands in a much more efficient way. We took many unnecessary codes out also. I believe that we were able to fix most of the issues that the reviewers have raised. The design of the system went from having one giant class to each commands being in their own class. At the end of it, we were able to get a 62% coverage in our system. I think if we worked on it some more then we could easily bring that coverage up.

My partner (Paul Galiza) and I worked pretty well as a team. We both had other things to do outside of this class but we were still able to pull through and work as a team with no problem. We met outside of class to work on the system as much as we can. In our group, we pretty much just worked on whatever was needed to be done. I think we both did a good job of carrying our weight when it comes to working on the system.

A new concept that was introduced to us while building this version of the system is Software ICU. Software ICU is a way of tracking the "health" of our project by monitoring the vital signs of the system. To do this, we used the system called hackystat. In a nutshell, hackystat monitored almost everything that we did involving the project. The screen shot above shows the current health of our system. Although it could be improved, our group really worked hard on getting the system up and running with minimal flaws.

The following questions are something that we are able to answer after getting our system up and running:

• What day and time during the month was Oahu energy usage at its highest? How many MW was this?
  The timestamp 2009-11-02T20:00:00.000-10:00 netted a high 995MW.
  
• What day and time during the month was Oahu energy usage at its lowest? How many MW was this?
  The timestamp 2009-11-02 netted a low 493MW.
  
• What day during the month did Oahu consume the most energy? How many MWh was this?
  No available data found for this month to answer this question.
  
• What day during the month did Oahu consume the least energy? How many MWh was this?
  No available data found for this month to answer this question.
  
• What day during the month did Oahu emit the most carbon (i.e. the "dirtiest" day)? How many lbs of carbon were emitted?
  The timestamp 2009-11-05 is one of the dirtiest day which emitted 29,959 lbs or carbon.
  
• What day during the month did Oahu emit the least carbon (i.e. the "cleanest" day)? How many lbs of carbon were emitted?
  The timestamp 2009-11-07 is one of the cleanest day which emitted only 22,908 lbs of carbon.

Click here to download the Ekahi branch of the WattDepot system.

-David Joel Lazaro

Code Review Experience

Reviewing each other's WattDepot systems clearly has a positive outcome. Clearly the other groups had different ways of building the system. Its good to know that I'm able to help them out by pointing out the errors so that they can improve their system. Reviewing the other systems also helps me because I can see how to improve our system also. I saw some better ways of implementing some methods that would make the system much more efficient.

The best way of responding to a code review is by taking it in positively. The reviewers of our system pointed out many things that we can improve on. They've spotted errors that we didn't catch ourselves. They have suggested many things to improve our system. The next part now is to try and implement those suggestions and fix the errors that they found.

-David Joel Lazaro

Code Review: WattDepot Eono Branch

This is my software review of the WattDepot System Elima branch by Scott Wong and Kelli Sawai. The template I used was provided by Philip Johnson.

A. Review the build

A1. Download the system, build it, and run any automated quality assurance checks (use "ant -f verify.build.xml"). If any errors occur, note these in your review.

-Build Successful

B. Review system usage

B1. Run the system. Exercise as much of its functionality as possible. Does it implement all of the required features?

help

-Works

quit

-Works

list sources

-Works

list summary {source}

-Invoking the command does nothing but returns to the command line interface.

list sensordata {source} timestamp {timestamp}

-Works

list sensordata {source} day {day}

-Doesn’t check the data for the duration of the day.

list power [generated|consumed] {source} timestamp {timestamp}

-Works

list power [generated|consumed] {source} day {day} sampling-interval {minutes} statistic {max|min|average}

-Works

list total [carbon|energy] generated {source} day {day} sampling-interval {minutes}

-Invoking “>list total energy generated SIM_WAIAU_8 day 2009-11-15 sampling-interval 30” results in the following error:

Exception in thread "main" org.wattdepot.client.BadXmlException: 400: Range extends beyond sensor data, startTime 2009-11-15T00:00:00.000-10:00, endTime 2009-11-15T00:00:00.000-10:00: Request: GET http://server.wattdepot.org:8182/wattdepot/sources/SIM_WAIAU_8/energy/?startTime=2009-11-15T00:00:00.000-10:00&endTime=2009-11-15T00:00:00.000-10:00&samplingInterval=30

at org.wattdepot.client.WattDepotClient.getEnergy(WattDepotClient.java:566)

at org.wattdepot.client.WattDepotClient.getEnergyValue(WattDepotClient.java:614)

at org.wattdepot.client.WattDepotClient.getEnergyGenerated(WattDepotClient.java:637)

at org.wattdepot.cli.ListCommand.listTotalGenerated(ListCommand.java:362)

at org.wattdepot.cli.CommandLineInterface.main(CommandLineInterface.java:109)

chart power [generated|consumed] {source} {startday} {endday} sampling-interval {minutes} file {file}

-Can’t get this command to work properly. Nothing happens when I invoke the command.

B2. Try to break the system by providing it with unexpected input. Can you make the system crash or generate a stack dump? If so, note the input that caused the failure.

>list total energy generated SIM_WAIAU_8 day 2009-11-15 sampling-interval 30

Exception in thread "main" org.wattdepot.client.BadXmlException: 400: Range extends beyond sensor data, startTime 2009-11-15T00:00:00.000-10:00, endTime 2009-11-15T00:00:00.000-10:00: Request: GET http://server.wattdepot.org:8182/wattdepot/sources/SIM_WAIAU_8/energy/?startTime=2009-11-15T00:00:00.000-10:00&endTime=2009-11-15T00:00:00.000-10:00&samplingInterval=30

at org.wattdepot.client.WattDepotClient.getEnergy(WattDepotClient.java:566)

at org.wattdepot.client.WattDepotClient.getEnergyValue(WattDepotClient.java:614)

at org.wattdepot.client.WattDepotClient.getEnergyGenerated(WattDepotClient.java:637)

at org.wattdepot.cli.ListCommand.listTotalGenerated(ListCommand.java:362)

at org.wattdepot.cli.CommandLineInterface.main(CommandLineInterface.java:109)

>list sensordata SIM_OAHU_GRID timestamp break

should never happen.

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException

at org.wattdepot.client.WattDepotClient.getSensorData(WattDepotClient.java:372)

at org.wattdepot.cli.ListCommand.listSensorDataTimestamp(ListCommand.java:320)

at org.wattdepot.cli.CommandLineInterface.main(CommandLineInterface.java:65)

>list sensordata test day test

should never happen.

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException

at org.wattdepot.client.WattDepotClient.getSensorData(WattDepotClient.java:372)

at org.wattdepot.cli.ListCommand.listSensorDataDay(ListCommand.java:92)

at org.wattdepot.cli.CommandLineInterface.main(CommandLineInterface.java:77)

C. Review the JavaDocs.

C1. Does the System Summary (provided in an overview.html file) provide an high-level description of the purpose of the system? Does it explain how each of the packages in the system relate to each other? Is the first sentence self-contained?

-The system summary provides a high-level description of the purpose of the system. Doesn’t really explain how the packages in the system relate to each other because only one package exist.

C2. Do the Package Summaries (provided in package.html files) provide a high-level description of the purpose of the package? Do they explain how the classes in the package related to each other? Is the first sentence self-contained?

-Main package summary refers to an example of WattDepot interaction.

C3. Do the Class Summaries (provided at the top of each .java file) provide a high-level description of the purpose of the class? Does it provide sample code for clients of the class, if useful? Is the first sentence self-contained?

-Accurate high-level description of the purpose of the class. Doesn’t provide sample code for clients of the class.

C4. Do the Method Summaries (provided before each method) explain, from a client-perspective, what the method does? Do they avoid giving away internal implementation details that could change? Do they document any side-effects of the method invocation? (Note that you can click on the method name to see the source code for the method, which is helpful to assessing the correctness and quality of the javadoc.)

-The method summaries does a pretty good job on explaining what the method does. They were able to do it without giving away internal implementation details.

D. Review the names

D1. Do another pass through the JavaDocs, this time concentrating on the names of packages, classes, and methods. Are these names well chosen? Do they conform to the best practices in Elements of Java Style, Chapter 3? Can you propose better names?

-Naming scheme looks fine.

D2. Once you have reviewed the names displayed in the JavaDocs, review the source code for internal names in the same way.

-Source code internal names looks fine also.

E. Review the testing.

The system should provide a useful set of test cases.

-Only test present is the example test provided by the instructor.

F. Review the package design

F1. Consider the set of packages in the system. Does this reflect a logical structure for the program? Are the contents of each package related to each other, or do some package contain classes with widely divergent function? Can you think of a better package-level structure for the system?

-System only contains one package. Maybe create a separate package for commands class, test cases, etc.

G. Review the class design

G1. Examine its internal structure in terms of its instance variables and methods. Does the class accomplish a single, well-defined task? If not, suggest how it could be divided into two or more classes.

-After going through the instance variables and methods of the system, I conclude that the classes in the system could be divided into separate classes instead of one big class that does many things. This will make the code easier to read and makes creating test cases easier.

G2. Are the set of instance variables appropriate for this class? If not, suggest a better way to organize its internal state.

-Looks fine.

G3. Does the class present a useful, but minimal interface to clients? In other words, are methods made private whenever possible? If not, which methods should be made private in order to improve the quality of the class interface to its clients?

-No private methods observed in the system.

H. Review the method design

H1. Does the method accomplish a single thing? If not, suggest how to divide it into two or more methods.

-Each methods seems fine in accomplishing a single thing.

H2. Is the method simple and easy to understand? Is it overly long? Does it have an overly complicated internal structure (branching and looping)? If so, suggest how to refactor it into a more simple design.

-The methods looks fine. They are easy to follow and understand.

H3. Does the method have a large number of side-effects? (Side effects are when the result of the method's operation is not reflected purely in its return value. Methods have side-effects when they alter the external environment through changing instance variables or other system state. All "void" methods express the results of their computation purely through side-effect.) In general, systems in which most methods have few or zero side-effects are easier to test, understand, and enhance. If a method has a large number of side-effects, try to think about ways to reduce them. (Note that this may involve a major redesign of the system in some cases.)

-No side-effects observed.

I. Check for common look and feel

I1. Is the code implemented consistently throughout the system, or do different sections look like they were implemented by different people? If so, provide examples of places with inconsistencies.

-The code seems to be consistent throughout the system. It doesn’t look like two people implemented the code.

Code Review: WattDepot Elima Branch

This is my software review of the WattDepot System Elima branch by Anthony Xu and John Mack. The template I used was provided by Philip Johnson.

A. Review the build

The first part of any review is to verify that the system builds and passes automated quality assurance.

A1. Download the system, build it, and run any automated quality assurance checks (use "ant -f verify.build.xml"). If any errors occur, note these in your review.

-Build Successful

B. Review system usage

If the system builds, the next step is to play with it.

B1. Run the system. Exercise as much of its functionality as possible. Does it implement all of the required features?

help

-Works

quit

-Works

list sources

-Parent and Description is missing from the output.

list summary {source}

-Command only returns the string “list source summary”

list sensordata {source} timestamp {timestamp}

-Works

list sensordata {source} day {day}

-Output of the command is not formatted correctly. Also doesn’t check the data for the duration of the day.

list power [generated|consumed] {source} timestamp {timestamp}

-“No such command” output when I tried to invoke the command listed in the help menu.

list power [generated|consumed] {source} day {day} sampling-interval {minutes} statistic {max|min|average}

-“No such command” output when I tried to invoke the command listed in the help menu.

list total [carbon|energy] generated {source} day {day} sampling-interval {minutes}

-“No such command” output when I tried to invoke the command listed in the help menu.

chart power [generated|consumed] {source} {startday} {endday} sampling-interval {minutes} file {file}

-Can’t get this command to work properly. I get the following error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 9, Size: 9

at java.util.ArrayList.RangeCheck(ArrayList.java:547)

at java.util.ArrayList.get(ArrayList.java:322)

at org.wattdepot.cli.command.ChartPowerCommand.doCommand(ChartPowerCommand.java:35)

at org.wattdepot.cli.CommandLineInterface.main(CommandLineInterface.java:155)

B2. Try to break the system by providing it with unexpected input. Can you make the system crash or generate a stack dump? If so, note the input that caused the failure.

> list sensordata SIM_OAHU_GRID timestamp 2009-

Unable to create timestamp

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException

at org.wattdepot.client.WattDepotClient.getSensorData(WattDepotClient.java:372)

at org.wattdepot.cli.command.ListSensordataTimestamp.doCommand(ListSensordataTimestamp.java:41)

at org.wattdepot.cli.CommandLineInterface.main(CommandLineInterface.java:155)

> list sensordata SIM_KAHE_1 day day

Unable to create timestamp

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException

at org.wattdepot.client.WattDepotClient.getSensorData(WattDepotClient.java:372)

at org.wattdepot.cli.command.ListSensordataDayCommand.doCommand(ListSensordataDayCommand.java:41)

at org.wattdepot.cli.CommandLineInterface.main(CommandLineInterface.java:155)

> chart power consumed

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 3, Size: 3

at java.util.ArrayList.RangeCheck(ArrayList.java:547)

at java.util.ArrayList.get(ArrayList.java:322)

at org.wattdepot.cli.command.ChartPowerCommand.doCommand(ChartPowerCommand.java:31)

at org.wattdepot.cli.CommandLineInterface.main(CommandLineInterface.java:155)

C. Review the JavaDocs.

Download the system and generate the javadocs (use "ant -f javadoc.build.xml"). Navigate to the build/javadoc folder and click on index.html to display the JavaDocs in a browser. Read through the JavaDocs and assess the following:

C1. Does the System Summary (provided in an overview.html file) provide an high-level description of the purpose of the system? Does it explain how each of the packages in the system relate to each other? Is the first sentence self-contained?

-The system summary provides a high-level description of the purpose of the system. Doesn’t really explain how the packages in the system relate to each other.

C2. Do the Package Summaries (provided in package.html files) provide a high-level description of the purpose of the package? Do they explain how the classes in the package related to each other? Is the first sentence self-contained?

-Pretty clear high-level description of the purpose of the package.

C3. Do the Class Summaries (provided at the top of each .java file) provide a high-level description of the purpose of the class? Does it provide sample code for clients of the class, if useful? Is the first sentence self-contained?

-Accurate high-level description of the purpose of the class. Doesn’t provide sample code for clients of the class.

C4. Do the Method Summaries (provided before each method) explain, from a client-perspective, what the method does? Do they avoid giving away internal implementation details that could change? Do they document any side-effects of the method invocation? (Note that you can click on the method name to see the source code for the method, which is helpful to assessing the correctness and quality of the javadoc.)

-The method summaries does a pretty good job on explaining what the method does. They were able to do it without giving away internal implementation details.

D. Review the names

One of the most important (if not the most important) form of documentation in any software system is the choice of names for program elements, such as packages, classes, methods, instance variables, and parameters. Due to evolution in requirements and design changes, the name originally chosen for a program element may no longer be appropriate or optimal. An important goal of review is to ensure that the names of program elements are well suited to their function. Due to the refactoring capabilities in modern IDEs such as Eclipse, renaming need not be a burden.

D1. Do another pass through the JavaDocs, this time concentrating on the names of packages, classes, and methods. Are these names well chosen? Do they conform to the best practices in Elements of Java Style, Chapter 3? Can you propose better names?

-Naming scheme looks fine.

D2. Once you have reviewed the names displayed in the JavaDocs, review the source code for internal names in the same way.

-Source code internal names looks fine also.

E. Review the testing.

The system should provide a useful set of test cases.

-Only test present is the example test provided by the instructor.

F. Review the package design

The JavaDoc review is focussed on whether the system design is correctly explained. In this section, you start to look at whether the system design is itself correct.

F1. Consider the set of packages in the system. Does this reflect a logical structure for the program? Are the contents of each package related to each other, or do some package contain classes with widely divergent function? Can you think of a better package-level structure for the system?

-Package structure looks good and organized. This is how the structure of the system is supposed to be like.

G. Review the class design

Examine each class implementation with respect to at least the following issues.

G1. Examine its internal structure in terms of its instance variables and methods. Does the class accomplish a single, well-defined task? If not, suggest how it could be divided into two or more classes.

-After going through the instance variables and methods of the system, I conclude that not all the class in the system accomplished a single, well defined task. This is because one of the class that does the list source summary command is not complete.

G2. Are the set of instance variables appropriate for this class? If not, suggest a better way to organize its internal state.

-Looks fine.

G3. Does the class present a useful, but minimal interface to clients? In other words, are methods made private whenever possible? If not, which methods should be made private in order to improve the quality of the class interface to its clients?

-No private methods observed in the system.

H. Review the method design

Examine each method implementation with respect to at least the following issues.

H1. Does the method accomplish a single thing? If not, suggest how to divide it into two or more methods.

-Each methods seems fine in accomplishing a single thing.

H2. Is the method simple and easy to understand? Is it overly long? Does it have an overly complicated internal structure (branching and looping)? If so, suggest how to refactor it into a more simple design.

-The methods looks fine. They are easy to follow and understand.

H3. Does the method have a large number of side-effects? (Side effects are when the result of the method's operation is not reflected purely in its return value. Methods have side-effects when they alter the external environment through changing instance variables or other system state. All "void" methods express the results of their computation purely through side-effect.) In general, systems in which most methods have few or zero side-effects are easier to test, understand, and enhance. If a method has a large number of side-effects, try to think about ways to reduce them. (Note that this may involve a major redesign of the system in some cases.)

-No side-effects observed.

I. Check for common look and feel

I1. Is the code implemented consistently throughout the system, or do different sections look like they were implemented by different people? If so, provide examples of places with inconsistencies.

-The code seems to be consistent throughout the system. It doesn’t look like two people implemented the code.

Wattdepot: A Smart Consumer's Tool

Last week, our class was introduced to the Wattdepot project. Wattdepot is a system that lets us store and analyze our power consumption by reading the meters. It's a great tool that gives smart consumers the ability to monitor their power consumption.

My partner for this project is Paul Galiza. Paul worked on the early parts of the system. I think Paul and I did pretty well as a team. He was always available for help whenever I'm stuck on some parts of the system.

I believe that we achieved most of the goals of this system. We were able to create all of the ten commands listed in the CommandSpecification page. A lot of time and effort were put in to getting our system done. Some of us stayed at Sinclair library overnight trying to finish our project. Paul and I pretty much just picked the next parts that was needed to be finished while helping each other out.

The biggest issue we had was creating our test cases. Our system didn't implement interfaces so we had one giant class that includes all of our commands. It was difficult to create test cases for one giant class. We will most likely modify our system later on to fix this problem. We would have done the changes but we didn't have enough time before the deadline. Click here to download our ekahi wattdepot system.

-David Joel Lazaro

Implementing Continuous Integration

Continuous integration is a practice that helps developers working in groups. Basically what it does is set up a general environment that gets the source code from a repository and verifies to see if its in a working condition. It monitor's the repository continuously to check for any errors when someone commits.

We are using Hudson for implementing continuous integration. The project set up was a breeze and only took about 3-5 minutes. We set up our project in the Hudson server so that every 5 minutes, it will download the source from the repository. It will then run the hudson.build.xml file which is pretty much running the verify Ant command. When something is wrong, it emails the group to inform that an error occurred while building the project. It's very helpful because it also shows what failed and who committed the file.

Using continuous integration can be very helpful when working on a project with many committers. It tells you when the project has errors not long after you perform a commit. The only negative I see in implementing continuous integration is the time lost setting up the Hudson server. Other than that, I think that continuous integration is all positive for a developer.

-David Joel Lazaro

Study Time!

Some questions to help study for this week's midterm:

1. Name one reason why using Unix based OS is better than using Windows in software development.

There's many reasons why a unix based OS is better than Windows in software development. One of them is that you don't get the usual problems that Windows users get such as getting infected by a malware and/or spyware. Stability could also be a reason.

2. Provide an example on how to properly ask a question in an online community forum.

Subject: NullPointerException when running a robot in Robocode

Body: Hello, I'm using Eclipse 3.5 on my Intel Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard. The error shows up when I try to run the robot Movement04. It throws the NullPointerException error before the robocode application gets a chance to open up.

*code here*

3. Why is it better to focus on doing one thing instead of multitasking?

The quality of work decreases if not focused on one thing.

4. Name one advantage of using automated quality assurance.

It saves precious time and money.

5. Provide an example of a JUnit Antipattern and explain it briefly.

Happy Path test validates the expected behavior of the system.

6. What automated quality assurance tool checks for proper coding standard?

Checkstyle

7. Provide an example of an acceptance test design.

Test to see if my own robot can beat a sample robot.

8. Why would a developer implement version control on their programs?

By implementing version control, we can see what types of changes were made in the system. For example lets say we have a system that's currently in version 1.1. If we compare it to say version 1.1.1, we can tell that its just a minor bug fix if the developers were following the version standards. If it was 1.2, then we know that something new or a major revision was done.

9. Name one advantage of distributed version control over centralized version control.

Everybody has their own copy of the project. If the project gets lost or corrupted in a centralized server, unless someone kept a backup, the whole thing is gone.

10. What does ANT stand for?

Another Neat Tool

Project Management with Google

In this homework assignment, I learned how to use a centralized configuration manager by using SmartSVN and project hosting with Google Code. The tasks for this assignment were pretty easy if done correctly. The first thing I did was install SmartSVN on my machine. This is the program that does all the subversion work for us. It didn't take long before I got the hang of using SmartSVN on my machine. I used the "robocode-pmj-dacruzer" project to test SmartSVN.

After getting SmartSVN up and running on my machine, I then went ahead and created a new project in Google Project Hosting called "robocode-djl-dabeast." With the help of SmartSVN, I got my robocode system hosted in no time. I went ahead and tried to download the project anonymously in SmartSVN and ran ant -f verify.build.xml. The build was successful which means that everything is set up correctly.

I was able to accomplish all task except for one. An issue with Google that wouldn't allow us to add codesite-noreply@google.com as a member in our discussion list. The main purpose of this was to send out notifications whenever someone commits to the project. I filed the issue here and tried their fix but I'm still not able to generate an email after committing. I think this is the most difficult part of the assignment for me.

There is one important lesson I learned from this and that is to not "Update" my local directory when the repository is empty. I made this mistake in SmartSVN. I didn't commit the local project to the repository before I did the update and it resulted in an empty local directory.

Here are the links to my project and discussion pages:

robocode-djl-dabeast

robocode-djl-dabeast-discuss

Leave a message with your email if you want to contribute to this project :)

-David Joel Lazaro

Robocode: JUnit Testing

This homework assignment was about gaining experience writing our own JUnit test codes. I think the hardest and most frustrating part of this homework for me was getting our distribution directory to import and play nice with Eclipse. I spent the whole class time trying to setup my environment inside Eclipse. Once I got everything up and running the way I wanted, it was time to brainstorm on what I should test in my robocode.

My JUnit test cases consisted of two acceptance test and four behavioral test. For my acceptance tests, I tested whether DaBeast can win half the time against the sample robots Corners and Crazy. One of my behavioral test check whether DaBeast actually goes into one of the corners of the battlefield mainly the bottom left corner. The other test checked whether DaBeast travelled near the left wall by checking if it went to the bottom left corner and top left corner. Another behavioral test was to see if DaBeast rams its opponents. Lastly, I made a test to make sure that DaBeast's firing power is within range of what I set it to be.

The easiest test to create were obviously the acceptance test. All we needed to do was assert if we won the battles half the time. The behavioral tests were the difficult ones to create for me. I think it's because I wasn't familiar with the syntax of the snapshot interfaces that were built in robocode.

I'm not really 100% sure about the quality of my test cases. Two of the tests had bugs that I can't quite figure out how to fix. My bullet power test for example takes all the bullets in the battlefield at the end of each turn. This means that it also uses the bullets of the enemy robot for testing purposes. My robot only fires either to the power of two or three. For some reason, even if I was going against SittingDuck, I would see a bullet fired with the power of 1 which doesn't make sense to me. Another test that's flawed is when I check to see if DaBeast travels next to the left wall. It only checks whether DaBeast goes to the bottom and top left corners. DaBeast moves from the bottom left corner and goes straight up to the top left corner near the left wall. If anybody can help me fix that test then I'd really appreciate it.

When I ran Emma, it revealed that all of the methods of my test cases were executed. From my experience, it seems like having your code broken down into smaller pieces and testing each of those is the easiest way to test my robot. Click here to download the distribution of my system and see if you guys can implement my test cases in a much better way :).

-David Joel Lazaro

Ant: Project Building Made Easy

Ant is one of the best java programming tool I've used to date. Before Ant, it was just about writing the code, manually checking it for errors, then be done with it. Ant gives us the ability to create better software and automated quality assurance tools. This homework assignment allowed us to experience working with Ant by using robocode-pmj-dacruzer system as a template for our robots.

Getting Ant to run on my machine didn't go so well. After downloading the latest version of Ant and setting up the paths for it, I still couldn't get it to run. After some time, I came across a page that says Ant is installed with XCode tools for mac. I had XCode installed on my machine so I went ahead and check if there is a version of Ant installed by removing the new one that I just downloaded. After invoking the command ant -version, I was presented with a 1.7.0 version of Ant. I then removed that version and tried to install the newest build and the error disappeared. I then ran the ant invocations for the robocode-pmj-dacruzer system and passed all of it.

The second task of the homework was to use robocode-pmj-dacruzer as a template to implement on our own robocode project. I found that the best way to understand how Ant works is by tracing the xml files. It gave me an idea of how the build system worked. After modifying the build files, I was able to invoke ant and have a successful build.

The third task involves automated quality assurance on our project. The tools that we used for this project are Checkstyle, PMD, and FindBugs. As you all know, Checkstyle helps us developers to write codes that adhere to coding standards. In the past, I would do this manually by going through each line of the code. This quality assurance is automated by Checkstyle. After invoking ant -f checkstyle.build.xml for the first time, it flagged my code with two errors. The first error involves my use of "@date" which is not a valid Javadoc tag name. I simply removed that tag and replaced it with an @version tag instead. The other error was due to the lack of package-info.java file. I made a simple html file with the appropriate information. I rant the checkstyle build again and it flagged five more errors in my code. The first error was because I missed a period in my sentence. The other error was a missing Javadoc comment. The rest of the errors was due to missing @param tags for my methods. Checkstyle passed with no errors after my last fix. PMD reported no errors in my code which is good news. FindBugs however found one error. The error was URF_UNREAD_FIELD: Unread field. I had a variable that wasn't being used. This is a performance type of warning. All is good after removing that variable.

I may become very dependent with these quality assurance tools. They would make my future software development much more easier to debug. Also, utilizing these tools greatly cuts down the debugging time so we can focus more on making our software better.

Click here for my robocode-djl-DaBeast system.

-David Joel Lazaro