CS342 Mobile Application Development
Wednesday, 22 April 2015

0. Miscellaneous

-- The Any/Any problem for storyboards
var dog = animal as? Dog
println(dog.name)

-- as? as!

-- The !? stuff in ListDemo's tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath:

-- What else?


1. Projects & Teams

-- Any problems with my selections?

-- Get together with your team, grab a chunk
of wall, and talk about how you think you
should approach your first client meeting.

* What should the agenda be?
* What questions should you be asking?
* What do you want to take away from the meeting?
* Who should do what at the meeting?



2. One possible agenda

You can edit this or make your own, but you need to go
into the meeting with a clear sense of what you want to
have and know when the meeting is over. Of course,
sometimes a meeting will wander off agenda, and that can
be good or bad. Use your judgment.

A. Introductions

B. Description of the project
[by the client; you have read the description they provided,
but you want to hear it from them in person as well]

C. Discussion of client goals
[Try to come to an understanding of the non-software goals
You can say to the client: the software in itself is not an
end goal; rather, we hope the software will be able to support
your true end goals, which involve helping people to learn a
language or have a good experience at Reunion, etc.]

D. Discussion of the essential app features
[During this discussion, you're talking about the software,
but you want the three or four central features to
clearly refer back to the goals from #3. Separate features
into those that are essential and those that would
be nice if there's time. This agenda item might produce
drawings, miscellaneous lists, etc.]

E. Construction of a plan / to-do list
[A couple items on your to-do list will be to send the clients
screen mockups/drawings for feedback in about a week, and to show
them a running prototype with at least the basic navigation in
place by mid-May. But perhaps your app will need a server side,
or access to an HTTP-based API with college data, etc. Somebody
will need to talk to whoever owns the data, and you'll need
to figure out where the server side gets hosted, etc. Depending
on the project, there may be lots of idiosyncratic tasks to handle
early in the project. Try to write those down during this meeting.

Also, write down any basic information you need to know to do the work.
Phone numbers, URLs, names of people, etc.]


3. What is professionalism?


4. Other notes

Focus on customer goals. This is harder than it sounds.

Customers and developers are both bad at app design
  (with occasional exceptions on both sides)

Customer contempt is a genuine problem

Shaun: "Bring me problems, not solutions"

Professionalism: of what does it consist?
  respect, communication, timeliness, preparation,
  listening, engagement, responsiveness,...

Atticus Finch