Clarifications on Project Limits

[Psyf]

Hi Prof,

We were thinking whether we're allowed to let our app communicate with a server (local or online) that we made ourselves. This is to facilitate real-time updates in the app, and implement a login feature for users of two different authentication level. We'll also have to use some DB on the server.

Please advise.

Regards, Saif

[QzSG]

I am pretty interested in doing this too, since past semesters have had api connections to things like social media / github /etc, is there a limit as to how far we can go. Although I highly doubt using DB on the server portion will be allowed due to how DB drivers abstract away most of the data handling portions, despite the local app having to parse them after making api requests.

On a side note, I would like to ask how do we request using third party libraries like NLP and the like?

[okkhoy]

Using DB is not allowed. From the project constraints:

Constraint-No-DBMS: Do not use a DBMS to store data. Reason: Using a DBMS to store data will reduce the room to apply OOP techniques to manage data. It is true that most real world systems use a DBMS, but given the small size of this project, we need to optimize it for CS2113/T module learning outcomes; covering DBMS-related LOs will have to be left to database modules or level 3 project modules.

[okkhoy]

Use #11 for requesting libraries.

Points to note:

• You are strongly encouraged to follow the software process
• Planning for/in the project is important
  • One shot development is discouraged and may prove detrimental during evaluation
• Ensure all teammates are on the same page

[QzSG]

@okkhoy What about the local or online server communications mentioned by Saif? Is there a restriction where only API calls to existing APIs are allowed? Do we have to open source our own server code if api calls are proxied to lets say Github API through my server?

[okkhoy]

Making a client-server application is discouraged.

• automated testing is not easy

• [more important] peer testing becomes difficult, particularly in case of network outage during testing, which can render your application non-testable!

• minimal use of public API is OK (in your particular example, you can directly use GitHub API in the application) as long as the whole product doesn't depend on the network interaction.

• there should be some fallback mechanism to test the app if the API is not available