Enhancement for DueDates 1.2

This particular version of DueDates we are asked to enhance the capability to do an email alert if there is anything due at a particular given time. In doing so the Purple Team continue to gain more knowledge in using Continuous Integration and Software ICU. This week we were able to obtain a very good coverage by improving the quality and robustness on our code.





Assigned Task

I was assigned to implement the timer-based reporting for DueDates. In doing so we have to implement some of the functions of the Java Timer and TimerTask. Implementing the timer wasn't that bad, I looked at the API and there was also a tutorial link that was provided by Dr. Johnson, which helped a lot. The other member of our teams -Daniel, implemented the JavaMail and John was responsible for working on the complexity, improving the coverage, etc. The good part about in our team is the good communication and good cooperation. We were able to meet and discuss the tasks and issues about the project 1-2 hours a day on weekdays. As for the weekends, since we weren't able to get together due to some other personal commitments communicating through google chat is the only solution.

Minor Problems

The problem I had stumble upon this week was running the JAR file. Everytime I tried to run the jar file on the command line it gives me this particular exception stacktrace about "javax mail". And little did I realize that we weren't the only team who was having a problem so are the other teams. So after seeing emails from other groups who had experienced the similar problem and who also posted a possible solution (Ronn and Art) helped me to solve my own. By putting the "mail.jar" into the JDK library is not enough because that didn't solve the problem, so I had to also put the "mail.jar" into the JRE library extension to make it work. In addition, these past few days I also had a couple of weird connection failures. I could be in the middle of working on something on the net and out of the blue my internet connection would just fail. Despite of everything that happened I was still able to do my part in the project and so is the rest of the purple team.


Overview

As the day go by on the incremental of our project I am continuing to improve my knowledge about creating a good software and what software engineering is all about. Good and clear communication in our team is one of the keys in determining the accomplishment of our project. Finally, being able to keep track about the status of our project using Software ICU and Hackystat were very helpful.