Software Engineering for Internet Applications - Student Community

end-users. We use every opportunity to arrange for students to getreal-world feedback rather than letter grades from us.The principal area where we must retain the role of evaluator is inlooking at a team's documentation. The main question here is "Howeasy would it be for a new team of programmers, with access only towhat is in the /doc directory on a team's server, to take over theproject?"Packet Radio Service or "GPRS", rolled out across the world in late2001, it became possible for a mobile user to simultaneously speakand listen in a voice connection while using text screens delivered viaa Web connection. As an engineer you'll have to decide when itmakes sense to talk to the user, listen to the user, print out a screenof options to the user, and ask the user to highlight and click tochoose from that screen of options. For example, when booking anairline flight it is much more convenient to speak the departure andarrival cities than to choose from a menu of thousands of airportsworldwide. But if there are 10 options for making the connection youdon't want to wait for the computer to read out those 10 and you don'twant to have to hold all the facts about those 10 options in your mind.It would be more convenient for the travel service to send you a Webpage with the 10 options printed and scrollable.On the personalization front, consider the corporate "knowledgesharing" or "knowledge management" system. Initially workers arehappy simply to have this kind of system in place. But after a fewyears the system becomes so filled with stuff that it is difficult to findanything relevant. Given an organization in which 1000 documentsare generated every day, wouldn't it be nice to have a computersystem smart enough to figure out which 3 are likely to be mostinteresting to you? And display the titles on the three lines of yourphone's display?A more interesting challenge is presented by asking the question"Can a computer help me be all that I can be?" Engineers often buildthings that are easy to engineer. Fifty years after the development oftelevision, we started building high-definition television (HDTV).Could engineers build a higher resolution standard? Absolutely. Didconsumers care? So far it seems that not too many do care.Let's put it this way: Given a choice between watching Laverne andShirley in HDTV and being 20 lbs. thinner, which would you prefer?Thought so.If you take a tape measure down to the self-help section of your localbookstore you'll discover a world of unmet human goals. A lot ofthese goals are tough to reach because we lack willpower. Olympicathletes also lack willpower at times. But they get to the Olympicsand we're still fat. Why? Maybe because they have a coach and wedon't. Where are the engineering challenges in building a network-3445