Q: What operation system shall I use in senior design project courses?
A: The development environment will be Unix-based. With a few exception (such as a UI mock up tool running only on Windows and Mac), all the tools will run on Unix-based systems. These include Linux and MacOS based systems. If you have an Ubuntu or MacBook, you will be good to go. Otherwise, I recommend you to install an Ubuntu (or your favorite linux distribution). I would strongly recommend a separate (and a dual boot installation, if you still want to keep a Wiondows system on side) installation. A Virtual-machine based system (such as virtual-box) turns to have a signifant performance overhead, and was not recommended. You may want to refresh your system programming skills. Note: Always back up all the data on your hard drive before you install a new operating system. It is students' responsible to have a basic computing hardware per course requirement. We are not responsible for data loss or demages on your machine.
Q: Which version of eclipse will we use in projects?
A: We will use the IBM Rational Software Archtect (RSA), a special release of Eclipse pre-bundled with UML modeling tool. Please follow the instruction on the course website to obtain and install RSA. Once, you install RSA, you can extend it with eclipse plug-ins, just as with any other eclipse release.
Q: RSA crashed when accessing the eclipse market place, what shall I do?
A: RSA is a pre-packaged eclipse. It is a commercial software and not guaranteed to support all the features of an open-source eclipse. If you have a problem to access the market place directly from RSA, use the software installation feature of RSA (and also a feature of eclipse) to install a plug in.
Q: How can I install a plug-in into RSA?
A: Use the software installation feature of RSA, which is also a feature of Eclipse. To do so, go to "help/install new software", and then create a new "site" using the plug-in's URL. Follow the instruction to install the software plug-in. Note: some plug-in may require you to install it using "root" privilege, If that happens, you need to log in as root (or use "su" or a similar command), restart eclipse, and install the plug-in. Nevertheless, be very carefully on installing plug-in with "root" privilege. It may bring unintended consequence to your RSA installation. You shall solve the issue as a regular user first.
Q: Can we view /home/svn or its subdirectory directly on ELEC system or one of machines mounting ELEC's file system?
A: Absolutely not. Please check the introductory lecture note for the policy on accessing SVN repository. You are welcome to use SVN client side command to access the respository, but you are prohibited to access /home/svn and its sub-directories directly.
Q: Tools are hosted in /home/projects. Can we access /home/projects and its sub-directories?
A: Yes, you are allowed to access /home/projects directory. The access to RSA directory will be granted after you acknowledge IBM license agreement.
Q: I would like to have a head-start on Ruby on Rails, where shall I start?
A: The ruby on rails tutorial is a good start point. You may want to go through it closely and to follow its hands-on examples.
Q: I have a question on the design (or the requirement) of the project, can I stop by and ask you the question?
A: Yes, I will be happy to advise you on the design and requirement. You may stop by at the office hours, or you can stop by my office to check my availability.
Q: I am running into a problem in programing code when working on my senior design project, can I ask you to help me debug the code?
A: The general answer is "no". I will be happy to advise you on the software design, requirement, and the general questions on software process, but it is student's responsible to implement the design (in an analogy, an instructor can help a student understand homework question and even revist class materials, but he/she cannot help the student do the homework). You may ask the help from your team members, and also search on the web for an answer.
If all the above failed and you still want to discuss with me on the implementation, please send me a note on what you have tried (and failed), and the process that you followed to debug your code.