Rapid Development of a Quiz Application using Spring Roo

Truth be told, I've spent so much time running a training practice, writing a book and dealing with Rails apps that my brain needed a bit of adjustment to long-form, more than one day coding assignments. I tried to start with a simple JPA/hibernate model, but the mental feedback loop, even with Roo at the helm, was too slow for me.

(Remember, I am on a two week deadline right now to write two presentations AND get the quiz working if I have a shot at this. So I am trying to control a flailing feeling. And thinking that I'm only doing one presentation next time.)

I went through three stages of thought before writing this down:

Stage 1 - Let's focus on the model

I figured that the data was key, and that I could model from the database up. I ended up floundering after a few hours of this, realizing that we have two problems here - the model of the quiz structure, and dealing with running instances of the quiz, recording answers, and reporting results.

The results were rather throwaway, so I won't bore you with them.

So, I went to Stage 2

Stage 2 - Go all design-patterny on it

Ok, focus on the objects and the in-memory model. That was a great turn, as it got me thinking about the contracts, building up the objects, etc. I figured I could have a Quiz in-memory model, and that I could build it using a builder. So I spent time writing up builders that looked something like this:

package com.chariot.games.quizzo.model.quiz;

public class QuestionBuilder {
  
  Question question;
  public QuestionBuilder() {
    question = new Question();
  }
  
  public QuestionBuilder title(String title) {
    question.setTitle(title);
    return this;
  }
  
  public QuestionBuilder choice(Choice choice) {
    question.getChoices().add(choice);
    return this;
  }
  
  public Question asQuestion() {
    return question;
  }
}

Then I could use the builder in tests, ala:

@Test
public void testBuildQuestionWithBooleanAnswer() 
   throws CloneNotSupportedException {

  Question q = new QuestionBuilder()
                .title("Studies say people are crazy.")
                .choice(new ChoiceBuilder()
                        .booleanChoice(true)
                        .text("They are crazy")
                        .asChoice()
                ).asQuestion();

    assertEquals("Studies say people are crazy.", q.getTitle());
    assertEquals(1, q.getChoices().size());
    assertEquals("They are crazy", q.getChoices().get(0).getAnswerText());

    assertEquals(BooleanChoice.class, q.getChoices().get(0).getClass());

    Question q2 = q.clone();
    assertEquals(q2, q);
    assertNotSame(q2, q);
}

Stage 3 - Prototype quickly on paper, models again

But in the end, what I really need is a quiz definition, with questions, etc., and I need to persist them at some point. So, it was fun, and helped me understand the relationships, but back to JPA.

My model so far...

Ok, so far I have the following model elements:

@RooJavaBean
@RooToString
@RooJpaActiveRecord
public class Choice {

    @NotNull
    @Size(max = 300)
    private String text;

    @NotNull
    private Boolean correct;

    @NotNull
    @ManyToOne
    private Question question;
}

@RooJavaBean
@RooToString
@RooJpaActiveRecord
public class Question {

    @ManyToOne
    private Quiz quiz;

    @NotNull
    @Size(max = 300)
    private String text;

    @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
    private Set<Choice> choices = new HashSet<Choice>();
}

@RooJavaBean
@RooToString
@RooJpaActiveRecord
public class Quiz {

    @NotNull
    @Size(max = 200)
    private String title;

    @NotNull
    @Size(max = 500)
    private String description;

}

@RooJavaBean
@RooToString
@RooJpaActiveRecord
public class Team {

    @NotNull
    @Size(max = 80)
    private String name;

    @NotNull
    private String mission;

    @ElementCollection
    private List<TeamMember> teamMembers;
}

@RooJavaBean
@RooToString
@Embeddable
public class TeamMember {

    @NotNull
    @Size(max = 40)
    private String name;
}

Did I mention - Git branches are cheap?

Git is great for things like this - since it keeps versions and branches within your .git database directory, you can branch and merge at will, and then push the repository updates when you are ready.

From http://www.rimple.com/tech/2012/2/19/quizzo-in-roo-truth-be-told.html