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From: giddy@trl.oz.au (David Giddy)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.object
Subject: Managing multi-programmer projects in OOP.
Message-ID: <2603@trlluna.trl.oz>
Date: 16 Jan 91 23:55:25 GMT
Sender: news@trlluna.trl.oz
Reply-To: d.giddy@trl.oz.au
Organization: Telecom Research Laboratories
Lines: 44

Hello fellow OOer's,

	I would like to generate some discussion on the subject of developing
object oriented systems with more than a single programmer working on the same
system.

	I would like to hear of others experiences in developing large systems
and how they divided work, defined interfaces and handled problems of ensuring
that a system was compilable while several people worked on various parts of
the system simultaneously.

	We are in the process of starting development of a significant sized 
system (around 10 staff years). We have chosen Eiffel as the development
environment for it's conceptual elegance, strict typing and good libraries. We
are in the process of system analysis and design and will be shortly in
a position
to start coding.

	Being large, we have broken the system into many clusters of classes and
have tried to keep the interactions between clusters to a minimum. The
question we
now face is how to divide work amongst programmers and how much specification
of clusters is necessary before initial prototyping can begin. This is the area
where I am most interested to hear others experiences.

	Out project team consists of around 7 programmers, two of whom are 
located in another state! This last constraint makes clean division of work
essential and is an area in which I am looking for ideas.

	I am looking forward to hearing the net's opinions on this area as I
don't believe it has been discussed much to date.

Regards,

David.

P.S: Our News system is being a bit slow at present (we are a dial up site), so
     I may not see your replies for upto six or seven days, so please be
patient
     for any response from me (Email is much quicker). 
______________________________________________________________________________
David Giddy,
Telecom Research Laboratories, P.O. Box 249, Clayton, VICTORIA 3168, AUSTRALIA
Voice: +61 3 541 6388	Fax: +61 3 543 1944   	      Email: d.giddy@trl.oz.au