Thread: Collaborative programming - mock exam q

Hi guys,

I have this problem in my mock exam:

Decribe howa program can be written collaborativley by several programmers at the same time, each working on an independant part of the program source code. Your description should include details of how the program will be produced from the various independant parts and also how the programmers organise their way of working together as a team.

There is a total of six marks for this question.

Since i havent written a program as part of a group yet im not really sure how people attempt this. I would think that it would work well for people to write their code in header files to be included in the main program and called by functions. Is that how people normally do it?

Programmers could use flowcharts, gantt charts to help break down the code and give each programmer a code portion.

Are these the kind of answers that would be required or are they looking for something different?

That would depend on the level of the course. If it's CS 101, that will probably do.

People can write different parts separately, and provide an interface through header files. That way other people don't need to learn about the implementation details of the part to use it.

Ok, thank you cyberfish.

Im am not doing a programming course as such so im not sure of the level I should be striving for. Is using header files the only thing that can help code collaboratively?

Certainly not. For bigger parts people can work together on the same file using version control systems like SVN (that can merge differences in versions checked in by different people at the same time). And then there could be people working on documentations, testing, etc. There are probably other ways, too, but I have no industry experience, so I will leave it to other people to answer.

Ok, well that is a help. I guess SVN is sort of like the google docs where people from across the globe can work on the same file.