GuideLines

From OPeNDAP Documentation
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Software Development Rules FAQ

Are there any rules to follow when performing development tasks?

Yes, there are several rules that must be followed in order for the tracking and control system to function effectively and to permit work to move from person to person in a seamless manner. If you take into account that you are communicating and presenting your work to other team members as you submit it, then you are likely to be following the spirit of these rules.

Ticket Rules

Avoid performing work without a ticket

If you feel you need to briefly work without a ticket (one day max) while using your own judgment to chase down an issue you run into, you can do so. This should not be a terribly frequent practice. Please consider having a ticket added retroactively in such cases, particularly if you want your work to be reflected in the reports that come from Trac.

When you start work on a Ticket, accept it via the Action area at the bottom of the ticket

It is ok to accept the ticket and stop work as other priorities compete. This gives management a good perception of which tasks are currently being actively pursued.

When done with the work associated with a ticket, close it promptly

For those tickets that are for bug fixes or new features, immediately after checking in the associated code on the trunk is ideal.

Preference ticket notations over scratch paper and/or memory when keeping notes on your progress for a task

Notating tickets frequently allows work to be seemlessly reassigned to another person in mid-stream. It makes the team more flexible and allows us to take better advantage of each others strengths.

Use the Category ticket property in a consistent manner when adding a new ticket or when changing the category of a ticket.

From left to right in the Ticket Property area, we have Bug, Feature and Task categories. Set the property according to the left-most category that it fits into. If it is a bug, classify it as such. Otherwise, if it is a feature classify it as such. If it is neither of those categories, classify it as a Task. This keeps the categorization both consistent and compatible with the automatic generation of data for the Release Description Document at release time.

Source Code Repository Rules

Do not use the selective locking feature of Subversion's, except for documents.

Documents are stored under /doc - the designated place for sharing and versioning documents via subversion.

Enter appropriately descriptive text describing changes when checking code into Subversion

The string should be descriptive enough to place the changes in the context of the ticket(s) the changes are associated with. This can be implicit through the wording, explicity by referring to the ticket(s) using wiki formatting in the subversion check-in string or both. We do not place any restrictions on what this text includes. You can include any text you wish as long as it includes information that associates it with the ticket.

Form and work from branches as necessary, but for short periods of time only (30 days or less).

Branches are transitory and formed with the intent to merge back to the trunk at a point in the near future.

Coding Rules

Follow Java coding conventions as outlined below.

Adherence to the conventions outlined below are required. In addition, developers should attempt to adhere to the coding conventions outlined by Sun Microsystems.

  • Package names are all lower case and are prefixed by "org.opendap."
  • Class names are nouns in !UpperCamelCase
  • Interfaces are in !UpperCamelCase
  • Methods names are verbs in lowerCamelCase
  • Instances of classes are in lowerCamelCase
  • Constants are all uppercase with words separated by an underscore