Learning Labs for Eclipse Linux Tools
Introduction
Learning Labs is a wiki-based learning community of students and professors. It has adopted the "learning-centric" approach used by Sugar Labs. [1] Learning activities are created to help students (and curious beginners) to get involved with the Eclipse Linux Tools community. Learning Labs can also serve as a point of interaction with the Eclipse Linux Tools community. Experienced developers from the community will be invited to interact with the students via the wiki. (The students can still interact with them through the IRC channel (#eclipse-linux on Freenode) and the newsgroup [2]). Finally students can still continue with the activities after a formal course (such as JAC444) is over by the end of a semester.
The idea of Learning Labs came to Peter Liu after he was inspired by Andrew Overholt's presentation on March 9, 2010. Andrew (Red Hat) told the students at Seneca College, "Announce Your Interest!" He also told the group that Eclipse Linux Tools was "a pleasant community." Indeed one of the students said that she could learn open source development as a beginner after listening to Andrew's presentation.
Andrew Overholt's Presentation (2 videos) [3]
Installing Eclipse on Fedora 12 Linux
Click here for a wiki tutorial (contributor: ljubo)
- Remarks
- (pliu) Ljubo, Thanks for your excellent contribution! This will give future students and curious beginners a good start. Please share with the community when you get Eclipse Linux Tools up running on your HP laptop.
Learning Labs (2010)
Mentors: Peter Liu (Seneca College)
Note: You are welcome to join this Learning Labs even though a semester is over. All you need to do is to create an account on this wiki and put your name under Student Team Members. If you have questions, please send me an email: peter.liu@senecac.on.ca.
Student Team Members
| Activity Numbers | First Name | Last Name | Seneca Username | Blog | IRC Nick | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1, 4 | Peter | Liu | pliu | peter.liu@senecac.on.ca | Wordpress | pliu |
| TBA | Ljubomir | Gorscak | gljubomir | gljubomir@learn.senecac.on.ca | Blogspot | ljubo |
| 1 | Kyle | Hodess | khodess | khodess@learn.senecac.on.ca | TBA | |
| TBA | Siji | Daniel | sadaniel1 | sadaniel1@learn.senecac.on.ca | ||
| 1 | Raymond | Hung | rhung4 | rhung4@learn.senecac.on.ca | TBA | |
| Amir | Mobasseri | ammobasseri | ammobasseri@learn.senecac.on.ca |
Learning Objectives
The activities are intended to be integrated learning exercises. By solving practical problems, the students will integrate what they have learned in various courses such as programming, operating systems and English communication. By doing some of these activities the students will acquire and enhance the following skills:
- practical research skills (i.e. Read, RE-search, Try, Ask),
- practical problem solving skills related to an open source project such as Eclipse Linux Tools,
- collaboration and communication skills (i.e. team-based problem solving).
Learning Activities (i.e. practical tasks to be completed)
Everyone on the team will help each other to solve practical problems and share their learning experiences. As a team, we will strive to make contributions to the Eclipse Linux Tools community. Within the time constraint, we might not be able to reach our ultimate goals. Moreover, the students are playing the role of trailblazers (i.e. pioneers). During the process of solving practical problems, they are generating and documenting a body of knowledge. This body of knowledge will benefit future students (and curious beginners) by at least giving them a good start.
Since this is a wik-based learning environment, students and mentors are always welcome to add learning activities according to their interests. They can also update resources and guidelines as they work on the activities.
Two ultimate goals of contribution
- Execute and enhance the Test Plan for Valgrind. [4]
- Resolve bug: Bug # 272038 - Use SWTBot for creating screenshots for documentation. [5]
List of Activities
Activity 1: Install Eclipse Linux Tools on a Fedora mahcine at CDOT (Centre for Development of Open Source Technology). [6]
- resources and guidelines
- things to be created: weekly progress report (blogging), tutorial
Activity 2: Perform manual testing on the Valgrind Tool.
- starting point: The Valgrind Test Plan [7]
- resources and guidelines
- things to be created: weekly progress summary (blogging), descriptions of test scenarios with C/C++ code (wiki)
Activity 3: Create SWTBot test cases and/or screenshots for the Valgrind plugins.
- starting point: Andrew's presentation (videos), Bug # 272038
- resources and guidelines
- more research is required here
- possible research topics: automated GUI testing with SWTBot
- things to be created: weekly progress summary (blogging), one or more of these artifacts: tutorial, SWTBot test cases, screenshots, and research summary
Activity 4: Dive into the source code and create a patch.
- starting point: Andrew's presentation (videos)
- resources and guidelines
- possible research topics: the ins and outs of an Eclipse plug-in developed in the Linux Tools project (e.g. the Valgrind plugin)
- things to be created: weekly progress summary (blogging), one or more of these artifacts: tutorial, a patch, and research summary
Activity 5: Enhance code coverage.
- starting point: Andrew's presentation (videos)
- resources and guidelines
- things to be created: weekly progress summary (blogging), one or more of these artifacts: tutorial, code coverage report, and JUnit test cases