Robert Free
12/14/06
Building the game Chutes and Ladders was a very interesting project. This was the first program that I ever created a design before I started to code. The process was new to me and difficult at first. However I learned how to created diagrams to help understand every aspect of the game that was needed to be coded. This greater understanding was key to being able to talk to my group members about what needed to be done without actually coding. Another aspect of this project that helped was the concept of a group project. It was intimidating at first to deal with one project as the main goal of the class and relying on others to reach that goal. However our meetings and discussions were a big help in completing and understand the process of completing the game. Also Netbeans was a great tool and help us tremendously on creating Chutes and Ladders. Without previous knowledge of Netbeans, it was difficult to code and create diagrams but it proved to be vital in the end. It was very helpful in the coding process to discuss the code written and what needed to be written with other group members. Without looking at code or even writing code, I knew beforehand what needed to be done and nearly what code needed to be written. If I had worked on a similar project, one thing I would have done differently was to create better icons to represent the players' positions on the board. We used colors as opposed to pictures. Picture icons chosen by the players before the game started could have perhaps made the game a little more fun to play. Things that didn't work in the project were aspects we didn't even think about until it was too late. One part would be if a player quits a computer player should take over. We thought about it for a while but never delved into the topic further and decided not to implement it. Other than that, I believe our game Chutes and Ladders works well and we thoroughly handled everything that could happen within our game.

Ryan Mann
12/13/06
I think the best part of the whole Chutes and Ladders project was the aspect of groups. It allows us to use the best person suited for each job. Each person had their expertise for the project and was able to implement this with great success, giving us better code and development, with more reliable code. The CVS functionality of Netbeans is a great tool. We had some trouble getting it to work correctly in the beginning but it turned out to be a great asset to our project. The ability of Netbeans to assist you with the management of your files and the testing of your files, maintains good working code. It would have been nice to have the CVS from the beginning to maintain the version control. I will use this again to keep better track of our progress though future projects. The over all project was very interesting. Implementing Chutes and Ladders into a java environment and making it runnable over a network for multiple people to play. I really enjoyed the aspect creating our own game from the ground up. The whole server client communication was very interesting to learn. I had very little experience with the communications over a network before. At the beginning of the semester we had code that barely communicated and now we have a multithreaded server that communicated in real time with all clients at once. Being thrown into this at the beginning was a little tough but now I have learned a tremendous amount about all aspects of Java and communications. I am very happy overall with the whole project and the class.

Patrick Oneill
12/14/06
What would i do different on a similar?
Spend more time together working as a group or in small groups. Spend more time figuring out the schedule for the milestones. Many were reached out of order.
What worked well?
CVS was a good way to always have access to the most up-to-date version of the program. Using Netbeans was a good way to keep all the files organized and made it easy to run the program.
What didn't work well?
We had alot of problems getting the CVS to work properly. Could not access CVS if working at home or on a laptop so updating the CVS became difficult.

Kristof Friedrichsen
12/14/06
What would I do differently on a similar project?
Actually, I cannot think of anything that I would do differently.
What went well?
The coordination during the main project (Chutes and Ladders) went quite well. We started working on the game early enough so that most of the time we were able to finish our milestones on time. Thus, there was rarely need to catch up. When someone made suggestions, the one who was responsible for that part implemented the changes almost immediately. Bob kept the webpage up-to-date. Ryan evolved into our most important man, as he was dealing with the whole client/server issue.
What did not go well?
The coordination at the beginning was not very good. We managed to finish the actual Tic-Tac-Toe game quite early, but we underestimated the effort that was necessary to finish the client/server stuff. At the beginning of the semester I had problems to express my thoughts due to my limited English speaking skills.