Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Another spoke in our wheel...

Hello friends,

I am here again with something new going on in our project. Today, we got an insight about how the details of our project should be differentiated and covered in Wiki, Blog and our group's mailing list. We have also been told about the deadlines which we have to meet to complete our project by 28th Feb 07. For the cause of simplicity and proper actions, we have been divided into 4 modules with one lead and two members each.
Overall, the aim of each one of us in our team is to complete our project successfully by the due date. We hope to cooperate with each other and work hard together to bring our dream and venture come true.

Regards
Meenakshi Baiswar

This project has occupied our minds and lives!

The first beta release of the mydearbooks website is to be launched on February 28, 2007. There are very few days remained. To complete this target we are planning our deadlines weekly. We have to work rigourously on the project to meet this. No doubt, there is pressure but, in my opinion this is an oppurtunity to learn lots of things.

For coming 22 days, we have to work passionately, help each other, be consistent and prompt. Whatever...to complete this project well in time is the only goal !

The best part is we have to perform under pressure.

We are re-grouped in a team of four groups, with three members per group. Including me there are three other memebers (Rajiv, Vaibhav and Virendra) of our team who are announced module leaders today.

I am really happy for this. But, being module leader means more responsibility. That is, to complete my module in all respect is my responsibility.

Again, only completing my module perfrectly is not going to serve our final goal, which is to launch the first beta release of mydearbooks website. If we miss it, it would be failure of our team as a whole.

I feel, our final goal has oriented all of us in just one direction. We have started sharing our difficulties, views due to this project. I am sure, we are going to make it.

Each and everyone of us is looking forward to complete all work. Dividing modules is just to manage scope of work efficiently. Otherwise, to complete every piece is the responsibilty of every team member.

I wish mydearbooks team, all the very best !

Kalyani Alshi, Nagpur.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Mock site

For mydearbooks site we began with creating a mock site. Initially Tushar sir explained us about the concept. We all started giving our ideas, then sir asked us to express them in simple HTML pages. He divided the job modulewise among us. We developed what we could. Believe me making a mock site is not a mockery. When the mock site was complete we began getting insight of this site.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Some finer aspects...

Hello friends!

On submission of the Mock Site yesterday, we came to know about some of the finer aspects of project details submission. One important factor was Release Note, which should consist of the known issues with submission. It shows maturity and understanding from the point of view of the project team that the team is in knowledge of the small bugs in the project, which can be fixed later.

There were few pages in our site which were unavailable on clicking the links. This gap was to be filled today and we are almost done on it by now. Today, we also got an introduction of Cascaded Style Sheets, which will be used for restructuring our website later on. This is how, we are progressing with small steps towards our bigger goal...

Regards
Meenakshi

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Troubleshooting Insight

Yesterday, sir explained us how to develop a web application using Struts and provided us with requirements specification for one. We had to use Eclipse 3.2 with wtp and Struts 1.2.9 for that. Avoiding use of plug-ins such as Easy Struts was the constraint.

We worked on the given problem definition just to realize the difference between theoretical knowledge and its implementation. More often that not developers are given training on how to build a project in certain environment. This means that during training some development environment (i.e. configuration files, build files, directory structure specific to that environment etc.) is assumed which is working. The training is given about how to use and develop applications on top of that.

Today sir asked whether we have done with it? Nobody was done. He asked, "where did you stuck up? Tell me the exact points." Then we individually started telling what problem we faced. He listened to our problems. It was to investigate which approach we took, what troubleshooting we did, etc.

Troubleshooting is indispensable to all developers. It is a critical aspect of development.
And today we learnt how to troubleshoot our applications.

Sir explained that plug-ins are automation tools and should be used only when needed i.e. when productivity is of prime importance. During learning use of automation tools is highly discouraged because, we must know what errors arise, why do they arise, how to troubleshoot them, and finally how to make it work.

There was an XDoclet error in web.xml, then there was some confusion regarding contents of web.xml and struts-config.xml, tld files etc.

Yesterday he explained building applications using Struts in following steps.

  • Create Struts Environment

  • Write Struts Code

  • Deploy


Sir started from scratch. He asked whether we all had struts.jar in lib folder, whether it is in the classpath of the project, whether we got Eclipse intelli-sense help after including struts.jar from Eclipse.

This investigation concluded that the problems were not because of struts.jar.

Then he proceeded on to the configuration files: web.xml, struts-config.xml. There is one mapping in web.xml which is responsible to call ActionServlet class of Struts framework. Sir suggested, "if you copied some web.xml that configures more than bare minimum functionality and you are screwed up, do remove all tags that are not required i.e. tags other than "must have" tags for application to run. Just don't follow things around blindly. Focus on one thing at a time. Go step-by-step. So, you know exactly at which step you are stuck up. Know exactly what and why you are doing it this way.

Unless application runs, errors and exceptions give us insight of the problem. So, they must be there and we should closely observe them to better understand working of tools and technologies we use. They are not bad !

Further, now-a-days every modern tool provide us with logs of its execution. Again spending 'good' time with them enriches our insight and experience.

Suppose you can not locate cause of error, try to revert to the 'last known working state' and then go on adding things to it, every time checking whether it is running or screwed up."


Kalyani Alshi, Nagpur.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Team work

Really it is good experience for us to host our website on net. We are 10 members working on this website. No doubt one day will come and everyone will surf our site on Internet. But one thing I would like to say that it is not easy task to work in the team. If any one fails to submit his given task within stipulated time, the entire team goes fail. So we learned from our exercise, everyone should be equally responsible to accomplish the task within given time period.
We also learned how to work in the team? How to work in pressure? How to complete our task within time? I am very thankful to my respected Tushar Sir to motivate us time-to-time.
Prakash Bhongade, Nagpur

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Move with goal

Hello friends

Starting with the first day of my class i felt where i would stand in terms of course and also the project which i though may have flown ahead. I really feel nice working with you all. The idea of learning the course and at the same time doing the project is really nice. I personally feel that both the things going hand in hand helps a person to think practically more as he learns and applies it at the same time.
At present everyone is involved in project. I and other team menbers in the class are busy with page linking. Majority of the work of linking is done. Some members who were enable to come mailed their task and also confirmed whether it was received. I really liked the spirit with which everyone is contributing.
GOOD BYE EVERY ONE.