Thursday, November 15, 2007

29.MyIsern-1.3-review

1. Installation Review
I have downloaded the gold's team ISERN 1.3 package from this link. First I was able to download, install, and run the system with no problem using ant. Then I tried running it with java -jar but the build.xml file does not have this target. The verify target passed with no errors, however Emma reported coverage in the range of 20-48, which is not too bad because mine was much lower. I did not find any installation guide.

2. Code format and conventions review
All the code format as well as comments are well written, besides that one "Web interface for the researchers page." which I found in all three action bean files. I am not certain whether it is right or wrong. However, even if it is right it doesn't say much about a class.

3. Test case review
It seems like there are only to classes to test MyIsernAction and MyIsern Model. MyIsernModel is tested well from both the black box and white box perspective. Only one Method the add/edit method was not tested at all. In addition, the whole MyIsernAction class needs to be tested. I understand that we did not have enough time to perform all the tasks assigned therefore as long as it will be done by Monday, it should be fine. From a break-da-bugha perspective, I clicked around and all the link that are not under construction worked well. Now, I think the assignment says to load the xml files from user.home which is somewhere in Document and Settings/name and create files if they don't exist but it loaded the xml files from the downloaded package.

4. User Interface review
Going to the user interface, it is fairly easy to use. The login and home or main page are on the same page but I assume that this is only so for the time until the login page is fully functional. The website utilizes screen estate average, it would be better if the width is a little smaller, because now it takes a little more than half a screen. I would suggest to rename the top researcher, organization, and collaboration tabs to something like list researcher etc. Since the user is not sure what the tab does until he or she clicks it. I was also a little confused where to edit definitions until I found a little note saying enter name to edit but what am I supposed to do then?

5. Summary and Lessons Learned
I did not learn a lot because it is about how people think about design. If I like a web layout that does not mean that everyone else will like it and vise versa. However, this project shows that at least they got a nice style sheet wrapped around the implementation. That is what I did not have the time for.