Reflections

Haha, well, we didn't get done with the software for a beta release.  It's looking like we may not finish the project by the end of the semester either.  I'm disappointed to write that, as I really want to get the project done.  If it happens that we don't get the project done by the end of the semester, I think I'll continue to help as much as possible to try and get it finished.

Reflections on the software engineering experience...  it is a difficult process, but rewarding when you see something come to fruition.  I have seen the ui develop, and have been able to build it from pretty much just empty accordions into something that looks and feels like a professional web application.  I have enjoyed seeing this project develop, and have really enjoyed getting the ui to pull from the db to display information that has been entered previously.  This is probably a trivial thing, but it took us some time to get there.

We've still got a long way to go.  I've finished the UI except for some very small things, and now I'm working on a client object that will hold all the information the interviewer enters and then send it to the database when it's done.

We may be closer than we think, or we may not be.  I'm hoping we'll be able to at least give PARC something that will allow them to enter clients and retrieve them as needed so that they will be able to use it for data entry.  The reporting is Dan's deal, and he doesn't think it will be done by the end of the semester.  The database is complete, I believe, and now it's just a matter of interacting with it.  Parc has requested a print feature that I don't think will be hard to do, but I don't think it will be done by the end of the semester either (maybe the next class?).

I enjoy software engineering.  I think that were we professionals and in a situation where we could have worked on this project 8 hours a day, we could have probably knocked it out in about the length of one semester.  Since we're students though, and there are many other demands on our time, we weren't able to do quite as much as we thought we were going to.  Alas, but this has been a great experience, and I wouldn't trade it.  Thanks Dr. Fry!