Assignment 1:First Step in Building Modern Software Paired assignment due: TBD(15%)
Overview
As discussed during the lectures, there are many technologies and tools you can use to build a modern software product. In this assignment, you are asked to familiarize yourself with some of the key tools you can use to build two of the most common types of software (web and mobile). You can see this assignment as a preparation for your project or the first step in familiarizing yourself with the modern software engineering world. You will work in teams of two to build a tech stack, for a mobile or web application. The application you will be building is a simple checkout price calculator with basic functions. You can think of the functionalities as that of the system that is used during checkout. Use cases can be adding items, removing items, applying discounts, adding tax, and any other realistic functionality you want to add but keep it simple. (you don¡¯t need any additional functionality, like save, load, advanced UI, etc.)
As you can see, the focus of this assignment is not on the complexity of the software but the infrastructure you need to establish to be able to develop the software.
Assignment breakdown
This assignment has two major paths:
1. Web application: ¡°How do we build a web application that can easily be developed,
tested, maintained, and deployed?¡± is the question leading this part of the assignment. You will research various solutions and steps needed and build on top of what we have talked about in the lectures. You can consider this web application would need (not part of the assignment) some standard functionality such as login, search, post comments, etc. and no special features (e.g., advanced visualizations, AI components, etc.). Your application must be responsive.
2. Mobile application: ¡°How do we build a mobile application that can easily be developed, tested, maintained, and distributed?¡± is the question leading this path. You can make an assumption about whether your application needs to run on Android, iOS, or both. But you must clarify that assumption in your report.
The process you follow for each path is very similar. However, the end result will be different. Please choose the path that you think your project will be in.
Next Steps
Your customer has chosen you as their trusted advisor and asked you to recommend a solution for their needs. You can start your research from the roadmaps we have seen during the
lecture. Consider three main technologies to use for each part. For example, for the backend of your web application, you can look at Node, Python, or Go, or any other language you find interesting. For the frontend of your application, you can look at Vue, React, Angular, or any other language/framework. You will then need to compare the options you have chosen. Considerations can include (but should not be limited to):
1. Ease of development for you (e.g., you know Python but Go may be new to you)
2. Maturity of the language/technology and the libraries available for integrations/UI
3. The domains covered by the technology/language (e.g., Python also supports ML
projects while Javascript can do both frontend and backend).
4. Popularity of the language/technology. You can look at HackerRank 2020 Report,
Stackoverflow 2019 Survey, or JetBrains Developer Ecosystem report.
5. Performance, scale and speed of the solutions built with these technologies.
6. Any other criteria you think is important and needs to be considered
Your tech stack needs to include solutions for the following:
1. Frontend technology
2. Backend (web or mobile)
a. Needs to include Testing Infrastructure (e.g., PyUnit for Python unit testing). You don¡¯t need to have comprehensive tests. One test is enough.
3. Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)
4. Database (we will talk about databases in one of future lectures in more depth)
Your setup needs to support:
1. One development environment and a production environment.
2. Automated deployment on merge at least to the development environment.
a. You can use any of the CI/CD tools.
b. Your deployment needs to include running test(s)
Deployment
You are expected to make your applications available for your TA to see, test and grade (mobile and web). You will need to ¡°deploy¡± your applications. We will use the word deploy loosely here meaning that you need to have your web application available via a url and find a way to share your mobile app with the TA (e.g., apks, expo, developer account sharing, video recording, etc).
Expected Submission
You will submit three things in your GitHub repo.
1. A report containing the options you considered for your path (mobile and web). This
report needs to include at least three options and a comparison of pros and cons of each
of them. In the comparison, you can consider the following elements:
2. Your final solution that you decided to choose and the key reasons for that decision.
3. Please provide a summary of your analysis (Max 1000 words. This doesn¡¯t mean you
have to write 1000 words. Quality is more important than quantity).
4. Application with all the details and instructions needed for your TA to see and test your application. Please note that if your instructions are not clear enough to be easily tested, you will lose 5%.
How to Submit
You will be submitting your assignment on Github. The following instructions will allow you to form a pair and create a repository for submission:
1. You must form an assignment pair on Quercus by navigating to the ¡®People¡¯ tab, then ¡®Assignment 1 Pairs¡¯. Add yourselves to a pair (e.g., Assignment 1 Pair 1). The number that you choose will be your pair number for this assignment
2. You must either create a repository using the following link or join an existing repository that your partner has created. You will use this repository to submit all material related to your assignment. Note that ¡®assignment1-pair¡¯ is automatically included in your Github team name. In other words, only enter
Marking Scheme
Report (40%): Your report needs to contain the tools and languages you researched and provide a detailed comparison of them leading to your final choice.
Deployed application (40%): You need to have deployed your application and setup CI for your applications
Easily available and testable application (20%)
Evaluation
Your assignment will be evaluated according to the following rubric
Application
Component
Mark
Weight
Notes
Web/Mobile
Application
Report
__ /400
40%
100 points per comparison
Deployed Application
__ /400
40%
100 points per criteria
Testing Availability
__ /200
20%
100 points per criteria
We will compute your mark by assigning each question a percentage according to the standards set below and take the weighted average. Each point is really a percentage point (i.e. 85 points on a question is 85% with regards to the standard below.
Evaluation Criteria for Report (Web / Mobile)
You will be comparing three main technologies for each of your four web application components or each of your four mobile application components. Each of you comparison will be evaluated according to the evaluation criteria outlined below:
Grade
Grade Expectations
100% (Outstanding)
– above expectations in quality or creativity of work (e.g. critical thinking, creative approach, etc.) when performing comparisons between technologies
– More than five considerations included in answer
– meets expectations for 80%
80% (Good)
– answer meets all expectations and addresses all five considerations listed in the assignment
– answer has both content and justification (i.e. what/how and why)
70% (OK)
– some expectations were not fully met within the question either because the answer is unclear or no clear justification was provided for the comparison (e.g. you mention what but not why)
– one major (or a relatively small number of minor) point(s) were not addressed in the question (i.e you did not talk about the domains covered by the technologies)
60% (Below Expectations)
– more than one major consideration was missed or not addressed within the answer to the question
– Multiple minor points are lacking clarity or clear justification
50% (Minimal)
– The provided answer does not cover any of the required details or is too high-level (i.e. an answer was provided but met no expectations or was not justified)
0% (Missing or extremely low quality)
– multiple (or all) points missed or very little content provided for the comparison
– No comparison is performed
Evaluation Criteria for Deployed Application (Mobile & Web)
Criteria
Grade expectations
Outstanding – 100%
Great- 80%
70% – Good
60% – Below Expectations
50% – Minimal
0% – Missing
1 – The application is functional
Meets expectation for 80%
Complex/additional functionalities are included in the application
All standard functionalities are present (i.e the application meets requirements)
The workflows (e.g. going from feature or view to the next) can be executed
Missing one or two standard functionalities
Moving between features (e.g. workflow) isn¡¯t fully functional but one can access each feature independently
Missing three or four standard functionalities
Little to no cohesion between features or application requires resetting between features
Missing majority of standard functionalities
No cohesion between features – it is impossible to move from one feature to another
NO SOFTWARE PRODUCT EXISTS OR A CRITERIA IS COMPLETELY MISSING
2 – The application¡¯s UI is present and usable
Meets expectation for 80%
UI is entirely free of visual defects
UI is visually/aesthetically pleasing
UI is highly usable and incorporates design principles
A UI was built
UI is mostly cohesive and clear
A UI was built for most features
UI requires some testing or constant reference to documentation to use or understand
Very few features contain a UI
UI is very non- intuitive and without documentation testing would be difficult
No UI was complete but some UI code exists
3 – Testing infrastructure implemented
Meets expectations for 80%
T esting infrastructure set up with one test case
Test infrastructure is fully set up but is not functional (i.e. the test
Test infrastructure is only partially completed
No testing infrastructure but
Testing infrastructure is comprehensive (beyond just unit tests)/ comprehensive/fully and easily extensible going beyond unit tests
that can be run successfully
T esting infrastructure can be adapted to develop further testing when expanding application functionality
does not run successfully)
Testing infrastructure cannot be adapted (or must be modified extensively) to develop more tests
some code for testing exists
4- Continuous Integration and Continuous Development setup
Deployment goes all the way to production with every push to master running all infrastructure successfully with high-quality tests
CI/CD is setup and runs everything successfully with every push
CI/CD is set up
CI/CD is fully set up but is not functional
Team has evidence of unsuccessful but attempted CI/CD setup
Evaluation Criteria for Testing Availability (Web & Mobile)
Criteria
Grade expectations
Outstanding – 100%
Great- 80%
70% – Good
60% – Below Expectations
50% – Minimal
0% – Missing
1 – The application is deployed
Meets expectations for 80%
Product is deployed fully through automation
Product is available to a tester without setting it up on a developer machine
Product deployment is easily repeatable
Product deployment was completed manually with interventions at most or all stages of deployment (e.g adjusting multiple parameters, manual branch adjustments, directly accessing deployment environment)
Product is deployed but cannot be accessed and requires team to present their work
Team has evidence of attempted but unsuccessful deployment
NO SOFTWARE PRODUCT EXISTS OR A CRITERIA IS COMPLETELY MISSING
2- Instructions for testing are provided
Meets expectations for 80%
Above expectations in quality or creativity of instructions (e.g., highly detailed, video demonstrations, GIFs, etc.)
Clear instructions are provided on how to use the application from the tester¡¯s perspective
Clear steps provided for using each feature that has been built
Instructions can be executed as provided
Instructions are provided for using the application, but some assumptions had to be made, or some ambiguity in instructions present
Some of the instructions cannot be executed as provided
Instructions are very unclear or ambiguous, and requires the tester to make many assumptions to use the application
Some missing steps
Provided instructions are insufficient for using the application from the tester¡¯s perspective
Steps not provided for using each feature that has been built, or many missing steps
None of the instructions can be executed as provided