Lab: WaitingLine Family Interface Design

For this lab you are required to work in a group of 4-6 members. Your instructor will tell you how to form the groups. Each group must work on a single computer so that you will be able to print and turn in your work at the end of the lab.

Objective

In this lab you will refine the design of the interfaces for the WaitingLine family of components that you worked on for the homework.

Setup

Select one team member who will be in charge of typing and submitting the team's interfaces. This team member should follow these steps to set up a project for this lab for the entire team.

Import the project for this lab by following these steps:

  1. Download WaitingLineFamilyDesign.zip to the computer.
  2. From the File menu select Import....
  3. In the new window, expand General and select Existing Projects into Workspace. Click Next.
  4. Click on the radio button next to Select archive file and then click the Browse... button. (If the archive was expanded when you downloaded the file to the computer, click on Select root directory... instead.)
  5. In the file selection window, find the WaitingLineFamilyDesign.zip file (or directory) you downloaded and select it. Click OK.
  6. Click Finish.

Method

Please follow the steps outlined below carefully. Your team's goal for this lab is to come up with a consensus on the design of the WaitingLineKernel and WaitingLine interfaces, and make sure that they are typed into Eclipse, free of syntax errors, and documented clearly and precisely.

  1. To start the design activity, share your homework and review each team member's design and make sure you note the similarities and differences between your solutions. Once every team member work has been considered by the entire team and everyone on the team has had a chance to review everyone else's design you can continue.
  2. As a team, start editing the project provided. Here are some specific steps:
    1. Explore the given project's src folder. It contains a package called components.queue, which, in turn, contains the QueueKernel and Queue interfaces.
    2. Create a new package. In the Package Explorer view, right-click on the src folder, and select New > Package. Then enter components.waitingline in the Name field and click on Finish.
    3. In the components.waitingline package, create the interfaces WaitingLineKernel and WaitingLine. One way to do it is to copy the QueueKernel and Queue interfaces one at a time from the components.queue package and paste them into the components.waitingline package while renaming them appropriately.
    4. Edit the new interfaces appropriately to reflect your design. This is the main part of the lab and you should make sure to include every teammate in the discussion and try to come up with the best design you can. Pay attention to the details including the choice of names for methods and parameters, and the model and contracts for your new components. Make sure the name of each team member is included in a separate @author tag in the Javadoc comment for each interface. Talk to an instructor if you have any questions.
  3. When your group has completed the design, call an instructor to show your work and get feedback on your design. You are required to print the WaitingLineKernel.java and WaitingLine.java files to PDF and submit them in Carmen before you leave the lab. You should also make sure that each team member has a copy of the two interfaces you designed together; emailing them or copying them to a USB flash drive are possible ways to share the work.