Slow Start
This past week as well as the previous two weeks have been moving very slowly for the Arkansas Asset Builders group. We were supposed to have a working demo done two weeks ago but a couple of the teammates have been behind on their issues. I previously had been working on the JAR file to be able to run the application from the desktop instead of an IDE, which I completed last week. I was tasked with helping to update the Hendrix Assessment project for some new sections that need to be added with the new year but I never received any tasking for the specific issue in a message nor is there an issue for me to work on for the project so I did not work on it over the weekend. I could not think of any more issues to create that I could work on for Arkansas Asset Builders so that is the next problem that I need to figure out.
I have not worked on any of the database sections since that is Matthew’s responsibility. He has been good at getting the database up and running and getting it to function properly and communicate with the FXML files. I merged a pull request from him so now our project has a database that we can use to store user data. It still has basic functionality but more will be added once the FXML files and their functionality gets up and running. Olivia has been working on the main page for the project as well as the page where the the user can upload files to the database. There are two issues for what she has been doing: creating the FXML file and the barebones of what the pages are going to look like and the actual functionality of the text areas and the buttons on the page to do things and communicate with other pages and the database. Lucy has been working on the database visualizer page, the page that displays the contents of the database and allows the user to filter the results of the database in order to see specific content and data.
The main concern that I have been trying to alleviate is the communication with the group. This group is newer with only one person who has worked in Disco Tray before and this is the first Java project that most of us have worked on in a long time. The group is also inexperienced with GitHub and how branches, syncing, and pull requests work so there have been some times where pull requests have been merged without a reviewer, which caused some issues. I do not blame them for not knowing Git and procedures for certain actions; Git can get really confusing especially for those who have never had to use it extensively and thoroughly so it is a learning process. I have been doing my best to teach them the ways of Git.
Communication within the group is also quite low which presents a few problems as well. I usually try to update the group with where I am at with my issue and what successes and failures I encounter if I cannot solve them immediately or if they may affect my group members as well. Matthew has been good with communicating to the group as to how far he has come along and the details of what he has done in his issue whenever I ask for updates. Olivia and Lucy have been somewhat communicative but I was hoping to get more out of them since their issues are integral to the project. They are busy people who are part of different groups on campus and I do not know if they work or not so I am not trying to reprimand them, it is just important that the group knows what they have done and how close they are to finishing so that we can create an initial project to show to others. I was thinking about helping them with their GitHub issues so that we could get the work done faster to get a demo working but I do not know how far along they are on their issues or if they have also started working on other issues that also pertain to what they are working on (e.g. the functionality of their FXML pages). Hopefully we can get something working this week since we are already behind but if not, I will do better to communicate and help the team out.