destiny team mailing list archive

[Zach Elko <zachelko@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I'll address you in this e-mail, Andy:


On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Andy Elsten <aelsten86@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I also understand your frustrations with me. My actions were not the best
> with the whole hashing function. I feel as a team all of our communicating
> has drastically dropped this semester and that worries me. I want to get
> pass this class like the rest of you and I want to produce the best project
> possible. I know meeting on a regular weekly basis isn't possible given all
> of our schedules but I don't think one meeting a week before the milestone
> worked out very well.


My main issue with you this milestone was your lack of effort in regards to
your assignment: bug tracking. You were assigned this task a few days before
our meeting, and had it brought up to you at the meeting. Then, 3 weeks
later, when we as a class were assigned a bug  tracking assignment, you were
the only person in our group who did not complete it on time. By my count,
you tracked only 3 bugs in over 3 weeks of time. To say that is unacceptable
is an understatement, but I think you realize that. Bug tracking is *vital*
to the success of this project. We will be scrambling to get everything done
on time, and the more bugs that get found now as opposed to during the last
milestone will help us tremendously.

Aside from that, my other issue is that you had essentially no communication
through the entire milestone. After you were assigned your bug tracking
task, you disappeared and I didn't see any activity from you until about 3
weeks later. This manifested itself in that last semester you always did the
presentations for class and some documentation. This semester, you never
asked if you should do that again or anything, so it had to be done by other
members of the group who also had coding tasks to do. I'm not saying it was
spelled out to you that you were "responsible" for it, but you had done it
in the past and it appeared you just assumed you weren't going to do it this
milestone.

Morals of the story: Volunteer yourself and ask if anything needs done.
Also, do the task you are assigned and take it seriously. Our project is
only as good as the bugs we've fixed before we release it. Bug tracking may
not be coding, but the coding is next to worthless if it is broken, and only
extensive play-testing is going to find those bugs.

Zach


> On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 12:32 PM, Doug Shook <dsshook@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Hello everyone.  After our little mini-discussion about peer reviews in
>> the hall after class I felt that we didn't quite get everything across the
>> best way possible.  This email is primarily intended to justify why I (and
>> I'm only speaking for myself) gave out peer reviews in the way that I did,
>> and what can be done for those who wish to improve.  I'm sending this to the
>> whole mailing list so that we can get everyone's feedback and hopefully
>> decide on a solution as a team.
>>
>> Tom, last semester you were criticized for your lack of communication, and
>> it continued even after I brought it to your attention.  I remember one
>> point last semester when I had fixed some bugs in your avatar code.  You
>> then committed over them after we had told you so many times to always
>> update before you make any changes.  I sent an (understandably upset) email
>> to you about what you did and didn't receive any reply.  I have to say that
>> your behavior in that situation pretty much turned me off to ever trying to
>> help you again.  I've seen some attempts on your part to rectify the
>> communication issue but they always seem half hearted.  Sending me an email
>> that your assignment won't be done until a few hours before its due doesn't
>> really do much good at all, especially when you had over a week to do it.
>>
>> Andy, last time I wrote out an email like this I brought up the fact that
>> you were assigned to write a hashing function, which didn't get finished.
>> Afterwards you did finish the hashing function, but it wasn't helpful to us
>> at all.  There was no way it would've worked with the Login Window that we
>> had, and in fact after a few minutes of inspection it was pretty clear to
>> see that you ripped a huge chunk of code you found from google and added a
>> few lines to it.  Something similar happened with the unit tests, which you
>> blatantly copied from my own unit tests.  Its not so much the code
>> "borrowing" that I mind as it is that you couldn't even take the time to
>> figure out how to adapt the code you borrowed so that it actually did what
>> it was supposed to.  I wouldn't have even minded THAT so much if you
>> would've found me or Zach or anyone and asked us how to do it correctly
>> instead of just hoping that it would since it worked for something else.
>>
>> Finally, I'd like to discuss the assigned tasks given to the two of you.
>> The only reason any tasks were assigned to the two of you in the first place
>> is because of the fear that myself and others have had about what would
>> happen if you attempted to work on certain parts of the project.  Given the
>> above behaviors I don't think that you could blame anyone for not trusting
>> you to do things properly, and on a project such as this that's REALLY
>> important.  If you want one of us to keep telling you what to work on I can
>> continue to do so, but no one ever tells me what to work on.  I've been
>> keeping up with this project since day one and I know what has and hasn't
>> been finished.  If for some reason I'm not sure then I'll ask someone, or
>> just check it myself.  As senior computer science students I don't think
>> that this is too much to ask.
>>
>> I'm truly sorry to have to be writing another one of these emails.  Its
>> just as unpleasant for me as I'm sure it is for you, and I hope that neither
>> of you take it personally.  I also hope that you weren't truly surprised at
>> the grades you got, however, and if you were then I ask you this: how much
>> stuff on the repo can you honestly say you contributed to?  I, for one, am
>> proud of my work, and I don't think it would be right to give equal credit
>> to those who contributed less, period.
>>
>> All of that being said, I am willing to ignore everything that has
>> occurred in the past and start anew.  There is still so much work to be done
>> and it will be much easier if we have your help.  So please....help us!
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~destiny<https://launchpad.net/%7Edestiny>
>> Post to     : destiny@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~destiny<https://launchpad.net/%7Edestiny>
>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~destiny<https://launchpad.net/%7Edestiny>
> Post to     : destiny@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~destiny<https://launchpad.net/%7Edestiny>
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>
>