FunWiki: SoftwareDevelopment

A class usually referred to as LSD, as in, "I'm taking LSD this semester," as in "I'm dropping LSD this semester to pick up a JointMajor," or as in "I'm doing LSD so I don't have to drop it, even though I'd rather be doing crack."

Stands for "Large-Scale Development"; students get into teams of three or four and write programs with minimal assistance from profs or other sources. It's not the programs that are so annoying about the class; it's the documentation, meetings, and other miscellaneous crap that is, in fact, necessary in a corporate world. The fact that Mudd is not a corporate environment should not be missed in this context.

As of fall 2005, ProfZ? is back, and she's brought Pop back with her.

Not quite [c]urrently (2005) being taught by ProfessorKeller. He's keeping ProfZ?'s focus on video games, but doesn't know all that much about game development on Windows. Pop has been replaced by Walris (a tetris-esque game), but golf and the random game have been kept.

Not quite [c]urrently (written in 2004) being taught by ProfZ?. Thus it tends to be disorganized, and for some reason has a focus on videogames. If the students in the class keep a close eye on the prof, then things don't get too out of control. Especially since if all of the teams are two weeks behind schedule, then she's willing to rearrange the schedule. If all goes well, then there are three projects per semester: a Pop game, a golf game, and a random OpenGL game:

Pop is some schmuck's idea of a good general-purpose game platform. It consists of the source code for several "games", sufficient to implement simple variants on most sprite games currently in existence. Unfortunately, the code is at times horribly written and often violates the principles of design that takers of the class are learning about. Three dereferencing arrows on the same line is all bad.

The golf game is intended to introduce OpenGL and three-dimensional collision detection while going into more details on software design. Collision detection is sufficiently difficult that this project is never completed (or else replaces the last project). A hint: be very, very careful with any code that Z wrote herself.

The random OpenGL game ideally evolves from the framework developed in the process of writing the golf game. Since it's more freeform than the others, it has actual potential to not suck. The Fall 2003 teams produced a 3D ScortchedEarth? variant and a StarFox? clone, both of which were actually fully functional. Shock!

Quotes:

We should draw this diagram on the floor in a flammable liquid and then light it on fire. I'm sure UML diagrams must summon some unholy demon. --JiBB