Discussion of Test Driven Development and Commenting for A1

PART A DUE: 11:59PM, Friday 4 September 2015

PART B DUE: 11:59PM, Sunday 6 September 2015

10 points


The goal of this assignment is to discuss the following with members of your group:

  • Goals of test driven development: validation or specification as well?
  • Concepts related to Java style

Part A (3+3 points)

Within your private discussion group "D2", post an initial message to respond to the following 2 questions:

  1. Does the test driven approach help you understand the program specification better? If so, how? Does it help you limit the features that you implement? Anything else?

  2. The course notes on Java Style argue, in general, against the use of program comments. This advice directly contradicts that given in many programming classes where students are told to heavily comment their programs. Give your position about the use of comments in code. Do you agree or disagree with the advice in the notes concerning comments? Justify your position.

Part B (2+2 points)

  1. Within your private discussion group "D2", try to reach a consensus by responding to others' messages. At least one response must be made to get points.

  2. Choose one member of the group who will post a summary of the discussion to the public discussion group "Final group posting: Discussion Assignment 2".

  3. On this public forum of the discussion board, post the summary and indicate your group number in the thread title.


By the completion of Discussion Assignments 1 and 2, you should be fairly comfortable with the Canvas Discussion Board By the way, you may use HTML within these messages.

You must actively participate in the discussion to get a grade. Just agreeing with the ideas and opinions of the other members is not actively participating.