0.2. Program Management¶
0.2.1. Program Management¶
0.2.1.1. Project Management¶
- Project management is a skill
- It has to be learned
- It has to be practiced
- Any skill-based class will typically grade you on process
- Consider taking a class to learn Tennis
- This semester, we will pay a lot of attention to your process
- We are working on ways to grade process
Scheduling ~~~~~~~~~~ :level: 3
- Managing large-scale projects involves scheduling activities
- It is human nature to work better toward intermediate milestones.
The same concepts can/should be applied to mid-sized projects encountered in class.
- For any project needing more than a week to complete, break into parts and design a schedule with milestones and deliverables.
- Find some way to keep track of details.
Note
For me, programming takes a lot of focus and concentration. One concern for me is the many details to remember. I use "todo" lists a lot. I find things like the GitHub Issue Tracker invaluable for bigger projects (but that might be overkill for CS3114 class projects). The key thing is to write down any details that occur to you that you don't want to deal with right this instant.
0.2.1.2. Historical Data¶
- X axis is % of total time spent by about one week before program due date.
- Y axis is score.
0.2.1.3. Historical Data 2¶
Results were significant:
- 90% of scores below median were students who did less than 50% of the project prior to the last week.
- Few did poorly who put in > 50% time early
- Some did well who didn’t put in >50% time early, but most who did well put in the early time
0.2.1.4. Historical Data 3¶
- Correlations:
- Strong correlation between early time and high score
- No correlation between total time spent and score
- No correlation between % early time and total time
0.2.1.5. What is the Mechanism?¶
- Correlations do not necessarily mean causation
- Do they behave that way because they are good, or does behaving that way make them good?
- But, we have data from students who sometimes spread their work over time (and generally doing better) vs. doing work at the last minute (and generally doing worse)
- Why would this matter?
- Spreading projects over time allows the “sleep on it” heuristic to operate
- Avoiding the “zombie” effect makes people more productive (and cuts time requirements)
0.2.1.6. How to fail at implementing your project:¶
- Write the project
- Debug the project
0.2.1.7. How to succeed at implementing your project¶
Write the smallest possible kernel
Debug the kernel thoroughly
- Repeat until completion:
- Add a functional unit
- Debug the resulting program
- Have a way to track details
Do mechanics early
Do structural design before implementation
Implement the tricky parts last
0.2.1.8. How to Survive¶
Keys to success:
- Keeping Track of all the details
- You can't remember it all
- Rational Planning (and keeping to the plan)
- Spread the work over time
- Incremental Development
- Interleave writing and debugging
0.2.1.9. Being Organized 1¶
- Software development has so many details
- Spec requirements
- Program interactions
- So does Life
- Assignments and other things to do
0.2.1.10. Being Organized 2¶
- You can't turn this on/off
- Either you get in the habit of developing in an organized way, or you can't succeed as a software developer
- Part of it is developing the attitude of "sweating the details"
- Part of it is having the coping mechanisms to handle the details (organizational tactics)
Note
The good news is that there is an alternative: there are plenty of jobs where someone will tell you what to do every minute of the day. The bad news is that they tend not to pay well. Many of these jobs involve hamburgers.
0.2.1.11. Memory Can't Handle It¶
- Externalize
- TODO lists (What)
- Scheduling (The Plan for How)
- Issue trackers
- Documenting/Commenting
- Be able to update lists at any time,
Repository: GitHub
0.2.1.12. Spread Work Over Time¶
For anything beyond a small software project, you must have a plan/schedule
- Explicitly develop a schedule:
- Break into pieces: List of subtasks
- Deadlines for subtasks
- Realistic, enough flexibility built in
- Continuously modify and refine the plan
0.2.1.13. Incremental Development¶
- Break the project into a small initial core
- Implement and TEST and COMMENT the core
- Then gradually add functionality
- On any given day, write only as much code as you have time to debug THAT DAY
- This works well with Scheduling and Organizing
Note
For our projects, you need implementation, comments, and tests. If you write the comments (especially javadoc comments) and the tests when you add a functional unit, its not that big a burden. If you add them at the end, it feels really tedious (and you don't get any of the benefits).
0.2.1.14. Milestones¶
- Big positive effect with milestones (S16) vs without (F14)
A 43% 23% B 16% 22% C 11% 11% D/C- 8% 6% F 4% 5% Drop 19% 33%
