What programming methodology is used for the Final Year project?

Question

I am the last Computer Science Student, and as part of my undergraduate degree, I am doing a Data Mining project on Microarray DNA expression data. I will have to develop several algorithms, such as Bayesian Networks, to run on my data sets to find out how each variable (genes) affects each other.

As part of my project proposal, I should talk about which methodology I will use to develop my software. From what I learned at school and from additional reading, I think the incremental development model seems like a good idea. I would do 2–3 iterations of Plan, Design, Implement until I get the full functionality of the software. Can anyone with more knowledge than me please tell me this sounds good.

Why am I not 100% sure which methodology I would use because I do not have a team to work on software, I do not have a client with requirements, and I am very limited in terms of the amount of time to work on a project, since I have 3 more modules. All the methodologies that I read about seem to relate to large software projects with development teams. What do you do if you are only 1 person and focus on 3-4 algorithms, rather than focusing on a wide range of functionality.

I also thought about using UML to better understand what I want the software to execute and use as a stripped down version of the object-oriented methodology.

I assume that I will have to use parts of more than 1 methodology at a very basic level, but I just can’t choose.

I am very confused and lost in this matter, so any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank,

Answer 1

For these types of work, I would advise you not to pay much attention to methodologies, because in the end, the algorithm matters. But, in order to answer your dilemma, I would suggest using XP (eXtreme Programming). Why?

• Light coloured
• It does not require filling out many documents like RUP and others.
• More suitable for changing environments such as yours.

Just do a quick search of Google’s methodology for XP and you’ll get tons of useful results. ARUP (Agile RUP) can also be worth a look.

I hope I can help you.

Answer 2

XP/TDD ; - , - .

Answer 3

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, , , , Test Driven Development. , , , .

Answer 4

, , , .

If you get carried away and complete the project in just one or two iterations, keep notes on the order in which you did something (ideally use a version control system) so that you can at least wash your documentation so that it looks like this as if you used several iterations. Not that I approve of this approach, of course; -)