Before you start writing code

Today should be used for finalizing planning and doing research on data, technology, and tools you might need.

Check to see if you have these pieces in place before you start writing code:

• Every team member is clear on your MVP and you know what you are building.
• You have added user stories and tasks for MVP to your Trello board.
  • Your tasks should reflect the decisions you have made about how you will implement things
  • Make sure you are clear on what responsibilities belong to the front end or back end.
• You have created a team organization on GitHub and added every team member.
• You have created your project repo or repos on GitHub.
• You are clear on the git and GitHub workflow for your team.

Checklist for the back-end

• Models! What models will you need?
  • What fields belong on those models? Use the Django Model Field Reference.
  • What relationships exist between your models? (one-to-many, many-to-many?)
    • Consider using the CRC model to help guide your discussions.
    • You should create an ER diagram for your models to map relationships.
• What URLs will the front end need?
• What data will the front end request?
  • Are you returning HTML? -> What templates does the front end need, and who will make those?
  • Are you returning JSON? -? How will you structure your data?

Checklist for the front-end

• Can you map out a user flow through your app?
• Wireframes for each interface the user will see
  • With backend, can you say what URL corresponds to each page or interface the user sees?
  • If using React Router, what urls do you need?
• What data will you need on each page or interface? Where is it coming from?
  • What requests will you need to make from the front end?
• Are you making forms? Discuss data with the backend.
• What assets will you need?
• General strategy for css so that you can budget time for it
  • Starting to think about UI and design

Today’s topics

• Working in a shared repo
• Developing a team workflow

Resources

• GitHub Collaboration Docs
• Git in VS Code -> I use git on the command line and that’s how I teach people to use it. But you might like using the integration in VS Code. This is a good place to start, but there are many other extensions that you could use as well.
• Pair Programming Guide -> This template for a pairing session is practical and actionable. There are other resources on this site worth a look as well.

Slides

• Git Collaboration Slides

Videos

• Morning Access Password: 5g?.3.42
• Afternoon Access Password: 6I=1!u!%

Katie will be joining us today to talk about how Phase 4 and Career Services work together. We’ll have time for any questions you want to ask about preparing for the job market after graduation, and how to maximize your work in Phase 4 to set yourself up for success.

Today’s topics

• Finalizing your product idea
• Turning user stories into tasks
• Creating your Trello board

Create tasks on your Trello board today

Dawn has created a Trello board for each team, with columns predefined to start you off. You are welcome to adapt it and create additional columns to support the way your team works.

Slides

• Creating Tasks

Resources

• Atlassian: Writing User Stories
• FreeCodeCamp: How and Why to Write User Stories

Today’s topics

• Creating a product roadmap
• Thinking about features and implementation

What is your app & what does it do?

Tell us what you’re building. One form response per team, please.

Your Product Idea Form

Your responses will be shared with the instructional team and staff. We may ask you to limit or expand your idea, with the goal of helping you to have a project you can be truly proud of and that will represent you well on the job market.

Slides

Use these slides to guide your team discussions today. We’ll go over them in class, followed by time to work on creating your product roadmap with your team.

• Product Roadmap Slides

The past twelve weeks have prepared you to take on the challenge ahead in these next four weeks. Your goal is to design and build a real-world software product, working collaboratively on a small team using agile development practices and all the tools you’ve already learned – and some you will learn as you go.

At the end of the phase, your team will present your product to an audience of local tech professionals, hiring partners, and your peers.

The experience of working on a team during this phase and the product you build will form the foundation for your job search after graduation.

You will not be writing code for your project until the end of the week.

Today’s topics

• What is agile development?
• Forming final project groups
• Brainstorming product ideas

Forming final project groups

Please fill out this form so we can assign people to teams. This form is completely confidential.

Creativity exercise: 30 circles

Print out the following template, or draw a similar one on a piece of paper.

30 circles PDF template

Slides

• Overview
• Agile Development
• Coming up with your product idea

References

• Beginner’s Guide to Scrum and Agile
• 12 principles from the Agile Manifesto
• Command Line Heroes Podcast Produced by RedHat and hosted by Saron Yitbarek, this is a scripted podcast that tells the story of software frmo the last 40-ish years or so. Season 1 has an episode of the origin of Agile Development. The whole series is really well done. If you enjoy understanding the history of things like I do, you will like this podcast!