Making a collaborate effort.

A programmer working on his or her own can only accomplish so much before the limitations of time and talent begin to make the completion of a large project infeasible. To succeed in the modern programming environment requires collaboration between several or even thousands of individuals. Furthermore, for such a collaboration to be successful it is necessary for code to be shared, updated, and shared again using reliable and efficient methods. One way of accomplishing this is through SVN or subversion control. By creating a central depository of code and implementing safe ways of distributing code and tracking changes, it is possible for a large number of people to work together on a single system.

Google: a generous overlord

One source for a framework for SVN is through Google project hosting. Anyone can, for free, create and manage their own open-source project using this site. To help my classmates and I get comfortable with the subversion process, my software engineering professor set up a project containing the familiar Stack project. In order to easily be able to check out and update files from this repository, I downloaded a tool called TortoiseSVN. After a quick install and reboot (which I always hate because it can really break the productive process) I was able to create my own private space to work on the code downloaded from the Google project page.

Making my mark

Having downloaded the code, which at this point had been modified by most of the students in the class, I was worried there wouldn't be much for me to accomplish. However, I found that Stack still did not have a simple clear method to empty it, so I added that. What's more, the project was set to output to a /build/classes directory, rather than /bin, an issue that had previously caused strange problems in Eclipse. Having fixed those issues, I was able to quickly (after finding the cryptic password again which for some reason was not saving) upload the code along with a message about my changes. During my work with this project it also appeared to have acquired an empty and mysterious extra stack-johnson directory, which I deleted.

An offering to the world

Having successfully modified and updated code from a Google project, it was time for me to create my own project and to help test it, put it at the mercy of a fellow student, John Zhou, and the world, if it is interested. My personal latest iteration is no longer available only from a archaic zip-file in one of my other blog posts, but can be also found here. I also created a discussion group here. This whole online project world will also make it easier for me to work not just with others, but with myself in different locations, on different computers, which is often what I do. I definitely look forward to adding another layer of control and organization to my lessons on software engineering.