Howdy folks
Got results (144/160) today saying I passed the assignment/essay for OCMJEA.
Many thanks to the ranchers here with excellent tips and guidelines for the assignment, especially to MD
The assignment I had was Quick Computer.
I started the assignment almost immediately I passed MC exam in early March, registered on a Friday.
There were 5 use cases and I spent the time or weeks as follow:
- first weekend: read assignment, set up html files (index, risks, assumption)
- rest of March: (re-)learn UML, get familiar with my tool (Modelio), make notes and plan the design
- month of April: UML diagrams for class, component, deployment, and 5 sequence
- first half of May: finish off assumptions, risks html; didn't change diagrams, ask someone to review
- second half May: review the whole design from top to bottom, make changes accordingly, add bunch of html for NFR
- month of June: fine tune design, prepare for essay, take essay in end June
Throughout the whole process, I did found out doing this assignment is very similar to designing projects at work. The only difference is that at work you got to make the design work AND make your boss happy. However in the assignment, there is no boss (maybe yourself). Why I mentioned this? Cos you may not have taken the assignment much thought (too simple architecture) or taking it over the top (over-architecting).
At the early going, I practically did the minimal to get by (in diagrams and html documentation). But during the review, whole bunch of "taken for granted" things also put it so to make it explicit.
A
word about Sheil's sample solution, I personally don't recommend candidates to reference it because it's incomplete and have several areas wrong (eg arrows in sequence diagrams).
Anyway on to my next endeavor and goal.