The sensational student-semester
Wed May 19, 2010 13:02 (UTC -5)In the spring, I took a class called Introduction to Software Engineering. The main assignment over the course of the semester was a group project to design, create, and present a software application. Sound like fun?
The class had four discussion sections, which made it only natural that each discussion section should correspond to a group. The groups were about evenly distributed, each one having 16 or 17 people. In my group, we spent several weeks hashing out ideas for what kind of program to make.
I would talk about the ongoing project to my friend Mark, who had taken the class previously. When he first heard about it, he was shocked. “Seventeen people? That’s going to be way too many. You need two or three people.” Or, you know, something like that. I’m not a journalist, jeez.
I wasn’t really sure what he meant. I figured that with a lot of work, two or three people could complete a project on the scale of what we were doing, but with more people on the team, it would be easier for everyone.
Our group eventually decided on an instant messaging application for Android phones. The app would be designed specifically for our fellow UF students; each user would see a map of the campus with their buddies’ current locations marked. Users would also be able to create and invite their friends to events, which would also be shown on the map. The name of the program: ChompChat. The alligator-themed wordplay is inescapable around here.
We basically split ourselves into two teams: the client team, which would make the actual ChompChat application, and the server team, which would be responsible for handling interactions between users. After a while, the server team got something that worked, and the client team got something that worked. The hard part was getting them to work together.
Some of our other assignments for the class involved reading Fred Brooks’ The Mythical Man-Month, a classic text of software engineering. The titular essay explains that people and time aren’t interchangeable. As more people join a project, proportionally less work gets done because the new members have to learn the ropes and each member has to communicate with more people to figure out what’s going on. It’s summed up as Brooks’ law:
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
In the meantime, I had a hard time finding a place for myself in the project. We were using Google Wave to communicate (we had several big Google fans in the group), and not everyone was in on every wave. We had our own Trac installation set up for us, but no one ever filed any tickets.
I got most of my information from our weekly class meetings, and even then, I couldn’t help but bounce around from subteam to subteam, looking for something to do as the strong-willed and more technically able actually did most of the work. It got to the point where I decided to hold off from the development lest Brooks’ law come into play. Other members of the group agreed that this was a good idea.
When it came time for the groups to present their software projects, we had just gotten the client and the server to communicate with each other. Chatting and creating events worked, but geolocation and the other features we had originally dreamed up for ChompChat were absent. I felt as though the ghost of Fred Brooks were there in the room, laughing to himself. Actually, I didn’t because he’s still alive. But whatever.
Fred Brooks was right. Mark was right. And everyone else came around. Toward the end of the semester, the professor took a poll of the class, and almost everybody agreed that the groups should have been smaller. Too bad it took so much manpower to figure that out.
Statistics reveal America’s “beer belly,” where bars outnumber grocery stores. (Via The Consumerist)
This might be fun if you like math: an inverse graphing calculator that produces the corresponding equation for a curve that you draw. (Via J-Walk Blog)
This 1995 Newsweek article reads like satire in 2010: “The Internet? Bah!” A Newsweek blogger provides a modern commentary and manages to get a word from the author.
Filed under Computers, Internet, Musings and Observations, School, Science, Stuff
5 comments
#1 by Kate: Wed May 19, 2010 15:05 (UTC -5)
What a neat title. :P
#2 by Jordon Kalilich: Wed May 19, 2010 16:59 (UTC -5)
Thanks. I tried hard to think of a synonym for “mythical” that started with S, but I couldn’t. The best I could come up with was “sensational,” which can mean the same as “fantastic,” which (in a different sense) can mean the same as “mythical.” It’s quite a stretch.
#3 by Kate: Thu May 20, 2010 12:41 (UTC -5)
I haven’t noticed the trick with the same letters. Even more cool. :)
But it seems that the main irony of this post is the following: as the quantity of people -> ∞, the amount of work for every member -> 0, and it’s so small that you can’t even distribute it proportionally, right?
P.S. A synonim for “mythical” that starts with S – “spoof”?
#4 by Jordon Kalilich: Thu May 20, 2010 20:26 (UTC -5)
That’s the way it would seem. The chat program was a small task to split between 17 people, and I think it would have been impossible to split everything equally.
“Spoof” is more of a noun than an adjective to me, and it implies a parody. I don’t think “sensational” is very good either. The English language has failed me here.
#5 by Dan Zhao: Fri May 21, 2010 14:45 (UTC -5)
It’s kinda sad when a professor doesn’t realize simple and well-known ideas such as Brooks’ law. It shouldn’t take a whole 18 weeks to find out that the class isn’t working. A real disservice to the students.