Before you start writing code

Today should be used for finalizing planning and doing research on data, technology, and tools you might need.

Checklist for the whole team

• Every team member is clear on your MVP, and you know what you are building.
• You have added user stories and tasks for MVP to your Trello board.
  • Your tasks should reflect the decisions you have made about how you will implement things.
  • Make sure your tasks are labeled according to what responsibilities belong to the front end or back end.
• You have created a team organization on GitHub and added every team member.
• You have created your project repo or repos on GitHub.
  • Make sure you have a .gitignore file! You can get one that is specific to your project at gitignore.io.
• You are clear on the git and GitHub workflow for your team.
• 🚨 Make sure you are using django-environ and a .env file. This will be especially important for secret keys and sensitive info, like AWS credentials. DON’T COMMIT YOUR SECRET KEYS!

Checklist for the back-end

• Make sure you are using Postgres and not SQLite.
• Models! What models will you need?
  • What fields belong on those models? Use the Django Model Field Reference.
  • What relationships exist between your models? (one-to-many, many-to-many?)
    • Consider using the CRC model to help guide your discussions.
    • You should create an ER diagram for your models to map relationships. This may change as you work, but you should have a good plan to start with.
• What URLs will the front end need?
• What data will the front end request?
  • Are you returning HTML? -> What templates does the front end need, and who will make those?
  • Are you returning JSON? -? How will you structure your data?
• Deploy early and often – who will deploy? Make sure more than one person on your team has the ability to do this.
• Consider appointing a rotating team lead who can be responsible for running standup, leading at check-in, and looking after the Trello board.

Checklist for the front-end

• Can you map out a user flow through your app?
• Wireframes for each interface the user will see
  • With backend, can you say what URL corresponds to each page or interface the user sees?
  • If using React Router (with a separate front-end application), what urls do you need?
• What data will you need on each page or interface? Where is it coming from?
  • What requests will you need to make from the front end?
• Are you making forms? Discuss data with the backend.
• What assets will you need?
• General strategy for css so that you can budget time for it
  • Start to think about UI/UX and design

Reminders

• Standup starting Monday 8/17 @9:30am
• First check-in Monday 8/17 @2:00pm

Standup and check-ins will use the Zoom Phase 4 classroom.

Katie will be joining us today to talk about how Phase 4 and Career Services work together. We’ll have time for any questions you want to ask about preparing for the job market after graduation, and how to maximize your work in Phase 4 to set yourself up for success.

Today’s topics

• Finalizing your product idea
• Turning user stories into tasks
• Creating your Trello board

Create tasks on your Trello board today

Your team’s trello board is ready, with columns predefined to start you off. You are welcome to adapt it and create additional columns to support the way your team works.

Slides

• Creating Tasks
• GitHub Collaboration

Resources

• Atlassian: Writing User Stories
• FreeCodeCamp: How and Why to Write User Stories

Today’s topics

• Creating a product roadmap
• Thinking about features and implementation
• Finalizing your product idea
• Writing user stories

TODO: What is your app and what does it do?

One representative on behalf of your team should fill out this form by tomorrow morning to tell us exactly what you are building. Please make sure the responses represent everyone.

Defining MVP and prioritizing features

Use these slides to guide your team discussions today. We’ll go over them in class, followed by time to work on creating your product roadmap with your team.

• Product Roadmap Slides
• Atlassian: Writing User Stories
• FreeCodeCamp: How and Why to Write User Stories

The past twelve weeks have prepared you to take on the challenge ahead in these next four weeks. Your goal is to design and build a real-world software product, working collaboratively on a small team using agile development practices and all the tools you’ve already learned – and some you will learn as you go.

At the end of the phase, your team will present your product to an audience of local tech professionals, hiring partners, and your peers.

The experience of working on a team during this phase and the product you build will form the foundation for your job search after graduation.

You will not begin writing code for your project until Thursday of this week.

Today’s topics

• What is agile development?
• Forming final project groups
• Brainstorming product ideas

Slides

• Phase Overview
• Agile Development
• Coming up with your product idea

References

• Beginner’s Guide to Scrum and Agile
• 12 principles from the Agile Manifesto
• Command Line Heroes Podcast Produced by RedHat and hosted by Saron Yitbarek, this is a scripted podcast that tells the story of software frmo the last 40-ish years or so. Season 1 has an episode of the origin of Agile Development. The whole series is really well done. If you enjoy understanding the history of things like I do, you will like this podcast!
• What is Code? by Paul Ford Read this for the stakeholder perspective – really long but really well written and produced!

Today we’re going to talk about how you can write automated tests for your Django apps.

Next Monday, I’d like each of you to give a 5-minute briefing to the class on the following topics:

• Joey: GraphQL
• Russell: OAuth
• Shelby: Twilio
• Rajee: OpenAPI