2026-09-01Since we kicked off discussion today with the question "what will we do to succeed in 435?" it is worth reminding you that we have tips from students in previous semesters on exactly this point.

2026-09-01 The deadline to be on a scrimmage team is the deadline for submitting (as a team) the first scrimmage deliverables, which is Friday the 11th.

Scrimmage 1 (the first group exercise) is a two-foot putt: By 0700 on Friday, September 11, set up your assigned VM as a web server. Put up something that would convince a skeptical visitor landing on that site that the server relies on a database. Ensure your VM itself evidences basic care, maintenance and security. (Some students are cyber mavens - cool, so to be clear, this security directive is not an obligation for you to go nuts with defense!) Per convention for group assignments, please submit a cover sheet, according to the conventions for digital signatures with the template in your group folder. This exercise serves as a forcing function to get everyone on a group in some form or other; it lets us practice conventions for projects; and it is a good opportunity to practice following our "do the right thing" directive.

Heads up! Scrimmage 2 will be due by 9PM that same Friday. This is also an easy target (problem statement is below), but will require talking as a group in order to sort it out. Write a "plan" for how you intend to solve the problem, and provide a lo-fi model of the workflow your solution will support. The deliverable is your plan in Word document as "scrimmage02.docx" and either a Figma, Canva, Powerpoint animation or video animation of the workflow. These materials should persuade an ostensible product manager (like me) that you are on track and can solve my problem. (Cover sheet: yes.) The lo-fi, plan and ultimate product should be consistent with one another.

Scrimmage 3 is due at 5PM the following Friday (September 18). For this just follow your plan. Foreshadowing: by that point we will have surveyed all sorts of simple ways that a product can fail for want of technologists anticipating what users actually need. Your mission is not to replicate such defects in this exercise. Don't just write a program; solve the problem. (Cover sheet: yes.)

The problem - a capability we'd like to have: We'd like to have an easy way to visualize (read: "graph") data from a collection of uniformly-structured spreadsheets.

There, how's that for simple? Give me what I need in order to succeed.

Okay, a few more details are probably in order...

The starting point for this tool is a set of "uniformly-structured spreadsheets" - what are those?

• I'll be using Excel (XLSX) files having tabular data with some arbitrary number of columns and rows, either of which may or may not be labeled. We should work based on the user designating either the symbolic label used in a row/column or the usual Excel labeling convention for cells.
• The layout of each sheet in the set is likely to be 'more or less' the same, though sensible engineers will make a product that is robust in the face of variation.
• We don't particularly know how many sheets there are in any given use but it might be potentially large. We'd like for this to be something the user doesn't have to pay attention to in order to succeed.
• Examples: I might have sheets generated day by day to track weather properties; I might have stock reports generated week to week showing fluctuation in values; I may have student performance data tracked session to session.

And what do we want to do? Enable the user to select and graph one or some of the properties over the whole set of input files. If sheets capture weather then we might want to identify a TEMP row name and value field(s), then our product will select those values from the set and pop up an appropriate display. If it was stock values, then we'd identify one or some stock ticker values (if they appeared as the labels in each sheet) and display the graph of those over time. If sheets were about student performance then we'd offer the list of student names (again presuming these appear as labels in each sheet) and see the trend of values over time.

Some considerations to put on your radar early: First, we will be pretty concerned with usability and work flow. A system that technically allows visualization but with high-overhead data entry costs is probably a non-starter for us. Next, we are interested in rich display options; flexibility in what we name and how we select them is important. And as noted, we want something more than a toy; let's do this at scale.

Finally:

• We're not defining many details. "Do the right thing." By now I hope you're all figuring out that ambiguity is something we erase by exercising initiative to find what is necessary for mission success, not something we interpret for our own convenience. The 'client' in this problem seeks a reasonable way to understand more about arbitrary data sets. Help him win this illumination.
• The VM as assigned to you is available as a shared team resource. That doesn't mean you must do it there or that I would run it there, but it should facilitate coordination. However you reach a solution, though, limit yourself to run time services which are local (to the VM or where I work.) A back door to AWS servers, G**gle environments or any cloud resource in general is a non-starter.
• We strongly advise that solutions be based on coordinating efforts of all team members. Drawing straws to see who is stuck building the whole system is a great way to fail, not the least of which because I may randomly ask team members to explain or adapt one or another part of the system, and it goes poorly when they don't know what is going on. In any case, I bet this is just beefy enough a problem that there is something for everyone to work on.
• Engineering is problem solving under constraints. Find the best way forward with the time and resources we have available. A perfect solution which can't be completed until end of semester is not a solution. A toy that only enables simulation, not real analysis, is not a solution. A work flow that demands huge investment of my time to test with all the data from students in this class - or recent semesters - is not a solution.

This is a cool little toy that will let us explore common SE issues in the small before we blindly move ahead to trip over them in the larger project later.

2026-09-01 First class today. We went over some of the practice, made some introductions and got us all going on first assignments. To reproduce here a few points which came up along the way:

• "On time is late. Two minutes early is three minutes late."
• The grade server's zero-weight instruments ("phony baloney bonus points") are a way to offer insight on how other professionals might see your performance. We notice! So thanks to the several of you who completed the first assignment before class today - the early initiative got points. So did the intrepid adventurers who were first to engage in class with questions. Thanks! Looking forward to hearing the rest of you engage too!
• There are many ways we can interact, and commit messages on repository activity is another of them. These let me offer feedback and mentoring tips. If you're not tracking the messages we push from time to time then you aren't getting full value of the course.
• In steady state our work week will typically be a Tuesday discussion with some kind of lab activity on Thursdays. At start of semester we'll be a little out of cycle while we set a foundation; towards end of semester we'll err on the side of having more team time.
• Work week is for work. Pour it on. Weekends are for reflection. Let the lessons soak in. If you're not thinking about what happened then you're not learning in this class. Plan accordingly.
• Scrimmage assignments will be posted presently. Watch this space.
• Details count!
• Identify your textbook and support materials now, if you have not already.
• Bring your Gallup materials to Thursday lab!

2026-08-31 And we're under way in a new semester! Repository credentials will have been emailed to your address of record as of this morning, so per usual convention, if this is a surprise to you then check your spam folder or contact me soon so you can get set up. The initial assignments are due Thursday as detailed in the 2026-08-08 post below. We'll see you in class Tuesday.

We have many small tasks to field right now, and with fast pace. It is for good effect, I promise you, so my best advice is to cheerfully stay up to date with them.

2026-08-08 A new semester is just around the corner. We're sharing the the first assignments for those who want to get an early start.

• Review our guide on Expectations Management! Please make sure we are all clear about what we're getting into by reviewing the guide Is 435 right for me?

• Get started on the first assignments! Getting these very small tasks out of the way will keep the decks cleared for more interesting things once the semester arrives.

  1. Purchase your Clifton Strengths assessment. This skills assessment is for our exercises on team building and is available for a student discounted rate from the folks at Gallup: Clifton Strengths for Students (The "Top 5" report is adequate for our needs, but the student version offers those and more at the same price.) Save and study the PDF reports, which are specific to each person; we'll have you place the Signature Themes Report in your Subversion folder (which you will receive first day of semester.) We will use this material in our first lab, so don't be left out.
  2. Update your resume. Prepare this as a PDF document. Please only share details with which you are comfortable. We use the content later in sorting out talents for teams and projects, and to figure out early who knows how to follow directions (which is one of the most basic skill sets of our business.) Place this in a PDF document "resume.pdf" in your repository folder as well.
  3. Prepare a thoughtful statement of what you want to get out of 435. Craft this as a Word document, and place it in your Subversion folder as file "goals.docx".

   

  In general we judge more than just the payload of your submissions, so please remember that evidence of timeliness, preparation and planning always count. Everything you do reflects on you.

• Students on the waitlist should plan to attend the class from day one and perform the above assignments in anticipation of being admitted to the section. We will issue repository credentials to waitlisted students so you are able to participate in the labs and complete the exercises for on-time credit once you are able to add the class. Let's emphasize this: you must participate and do the work from day one in order to get the credit.

• Pro tip: Commit to success from day one. We rely on workmanship offered in early assignments when making decisions on teaming and tasking, so consider seriously what we will have to work with. Overall, exercise of initiative in the interest of quality is rewarded, so pay attention, demonstrate decent critical thinking skills and focus on success from the start. Do that and we'll make the semester worth your while.

• Assignments On the first day of the semester we will email credentials for access to the class repository (which is one of several ways we will communicate this semester) to each student registered. Our first assignments (as above) will be due by SOB on Thursday, September 3rd.

• Infographic Plan on prepping a simple infographic on yourself to pitch for team members (even if already on a team) for early the following week. You'll have plenty of ideas for how to do this based on our first lab, using resume and Gallup Strengths.

• Teams We will form four-person teams starting the first day of class. These teams will conduct practice exercises ("scrimmages") early in semester in order to get used to some of the basics before we tackle the class project. You're free to form these teams as you like, though don't panic if you don't know anyone else in class since we'll make time available adjacent to each class in order to meet one another.