Doing is Easy, Making is Hard: 10 Midterm Questions

Testing is the key to proving you learned something in this day and age. After over 7 weeks of assignments, readings, and classes, our software engineering class is fast approaching a midterm. With that before us we were asked to help out each other by making a set of midterm questions we could ask each other as suggested by the guidelines found here. 10 Questions were asked of us of all the things we've learned. Rather than aim for difficult I aimed at variety. Hopefully it will be things other people haven't thought of.

1. Name 2 things you should do before you ask questions on a forum, newgroup, etc. to avoid asking something you shouldn’t.

1. Try to find an answer by searching the archives of the forum you plan to post to.
2. Try to find an answer by searching the Web.
3. Try to find an answer by reading the manual.
4. Try to find an answer by reading a FAQ.
5. Try to find an answer by inspection or experimentation.
6. Try to find an answer by asking a skilled friend.
7. If you're a programmer, try to find an answer by reading the source code.

2. Why should you not use * in your java code when importing packages?

Increases the readability of your code for other users to understand what you are using.

3. Why is it important to use multiple Automated Quality Assurance tools even though they are very similar (compare checkstyle, pmd, and findbugs)?

They focus on different issues and different factors of those issues, for example checkstyle checks the formatting of the code, while pmd will check for overcomplicated statements, and findbugs looks at the byte code for errors that will occur in operations.

4. What becomes the main focus of a multitasker? What way does this detract from learning?

Multitaskers focus on focusing, or rather they focus on looking at different things but not on the actual content they are looking for. They focus on shifting focus prevents the actual content from ending the memory and becoming part of their learning.

5. What does Ant do in the following statement if they were in brackets and what is it used for with our robocode?:
< property location="${basedir}/src" name="src.dir" >

It creates a property called src.dir which uses the system property basedir (which contains the directory it is run in as part of the Ant system) plus /src. It is used to assign the directory to which the system can generate or add files to the current build as source files.

6. What about Overly Complex Tests are an anti-pattern for testing functionality? What is a good set up for unit tests?

Complex test obscure why a test fails and/or if it is erroneously passing. 5 steps make a good set up: Set up, Declare the expected results, exercise the unit under test, get the actual results, and asser that the actual results match the expected results.

7. What are the 3 Classic Configuration Management problems?

A. The double maintenance problem
-Must prevent occurrence of multiple copies of the same file that must be independently updated.
B. The shared data problem
-Must allow two or more developers to access the same file/data.
C. The simultaneous update problem
-Must prevent “clobbering” when two developers update the same file at the same time.
-“clobbering”: only the second developer’s changes survive

8. What is Verification and Validation? Provide an example (not necessarily coding) of each.

Verification insures that something is done right, Validation is if we are doing the right thing. For example, validation will confirm that we are accomplishing the goal of solving an addition problem 2+2=4, and verification will be a check to make sure that it is done using addition and not say multiplication by and luck (like if it did 2*2 and worked).

9. What are some Pros and Cons to Open source Software?

Pros: Fast development/updating, greater penetration to the market, free resource for users, more flexibility
Cons: Unstability, no functional guarantees, the rights of the programmer are harder to confirm
You can consult the Wikipedia entry for more info here.

10. Can you apply the 3 Prime Directives to our Robocode project? What ensures
all 3 are fulfilled?

A. The system successfully accomplishes a useful task.:
-Robocode gives an entertaining method for using java programming language and developing of packages.
B. An external user can successfully install and use the system
-Ant building allows us to make projects which are easy to integrate into our own projects. Google project hosting provides a method for obtaining and installing code for use
C. An external developer can easily modify the system
-Ant helps construct system as we used it and google project hosting allows a method of obtaining and modifying it for ease of use.

Question answers will be up sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday. Happy Studying to all and to all good writes!

Update (10/20): Answers have been put up. With the Midterm ahead for all of us in this class, one can only wait to see what will happen. Good luck, and may the knowledge protect you.