CSC444'11 Assignment 1

The purpose of this assignment is for you to become more aware of what you do when you program, and develop an understanding of how individual programmer productivity links to team and project productivity.

Write a program in an object-oriented or procedural language of your choice that helps you to select the next move in Scrabble.

The input is

• the configuration of a game board (how large it is, where the double and tripple letter/word spaces are - for testing purposes you will want to input smaller boards than the rules call for),
• the points associated with the various letters,
• the current letter placement on the game board,
• the letters/wildcards on your rack,
• a dictionary of legal words (to make things easier for you, only explicitly listed words can be selected - for testing purposes you will want to input smaller dictionaries such as Basic English Word List).

The output is either "pass" if no word can be found that fits; or the highest scoring possible word, its placement, and its score if one can be found.

To keep the time spent on this assignment in check, you are not required (nor will receive adidiotnal marks for) extensive input validation, automated testing, fancy user interfaces, or advanced game play (i.e., choosing a word that will also make things more difficult for your opponent and/or easier for you on the next go).

Estimate and then keep track of the exact time spent in each phase of development, and the exact number of defects along the way. Divide your development into the following phases (though jump around as you please).

1. Requirements
   Understand the game and what you are being asked to do.
2. Specification
   Decide on the precise inputs and outputs and document them. Note that every detail of the file formats and i/o should be specified - that is the purpose of this phase.
3. Design
   Decide on the algorithm, design the data structures you will use, and document them.
4. Code and Unit test
   Write code and run smaller tests as the code is created to ensure it works properly. Finish when you believe the program is code complete.
5. System Test
   Test the software using a wider range of test cases. Fix any defects you encounter.

You will hand in (and/or be marked on) the following (see also the marking scheme and sheet).

1. (20%) A sequence of estimates for how many hours you would expect to spend on the entire assignment.
   Provide an estimate at the start (along with a work breakdown structure as justification).
   Provide a re-estimate (with justification) after the specification is done, and another after the design is mostly set and you have just started into the coding. When re-estimating, be sure to note the time recorded to-date as at the re-estimate.
   (No marks are awarded for "getting it right" - just give your best guess in advance).
2. (10%) Detailed time logs and detailed defect logs that you used to come up with the summary.
3. (10%) Time summary sheet detailing exact time spent in every phase, and a defect summary sheet showing the total number of defects found, classified in some meaningful way.
4. (40%) Printouts of the requirements, specification, design, code, and tests you used (with results).
5. (10%) Does it work efficiently?
6. (10%) An insightful software engineering commentary on the experience. What did you learn? How do you think this generalizes?

Notes:

• Work alone. You may consult others and/or your professor but do not take away anything written by somebody else, and be sure to record the time under the requirements, specification or design phases.
• As an exception to the work alone rule, the class may share amongst themselves sample test input files (i.e., work together to create sample inputs that you can all use to speed up test case generation). Share them on the Blackboard forum.
• It's ok to skip around from phase to phase. Decide immediately after the fact into what phase your efforts belong.
• Start tomorrow: Immediately start recording your time.
• You do have to make the program work for full marks.
• In certain marking categories, the perfect mark is attained only as a relative ranking. For perfect marks, it must be better than what the other good solutions are doing (see the marking scheme for details).
• Make sure the code is easy to read and well-documented. Use a previous year's sample solution as your guide (e.g., http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~penny/teaching/csc444-06f/slider.cpp.html ).