Thinking about your project

COMP 4

What’s good

• Probably the only chance you’ll ever get to completely manage an IT project from start to finish.

• No staff, suppliers, budgets to worry about• Documentation requirement is thorough, but

quite achievable.• You can do anything you like*

* as long as it’s complex…..

It should be fun, but usually it’s not

• Reasons:– Project isn’t real (no expectation it will get used)– Paperwork element isn’t really understood– Specification ‘creep’– Time management

• Non-Reasons:– Technical problems

Choosing the right project

• Complexity considerations:

– Non-trivial algorithms, eg: sorting and recursive algorithms.– Use of sophisticated features of programming language, e.g. sophisticated data

structures, user-defined OOP classes – Complexity of non-computing field of the problem, e.g. complex mathematics

or complicated data relationships

• And also available– Time-based simulation – Portable devices / games consoles – Communication Protocols, e.g. TCP connections – Image Processing / pattern recognition, e.g. steganography, use of regular

expressions

Choosing the right project

• Real end-user• Real problem that interests you• Able to include complex elements

• …. that’s it.