The Capstone Experience for the BSU Computer Science BS First (solo) Project





Project 1 Sprint 1

Summary: This multi part project will provide you an chance to practice your programming skills and practice with the agile software development methodology, continuous integration, automated testing and other more industry oriented practices that we don't often use in academia.

Agile: This project will be done in the agile methodology in that it will be done in a series of sprints. Each week there will be a 3-6 hour (estimated – this assumes you start early enough to walk away when things get complected) assignment which builds on the previous assignment. So be sure to be careful to practice good software development techniques so that you don't make life difficult for yourself later.



Individual work: Later in the semester we will work on group work. For this project you will work individually. You may ask your classmates for pointers on getting your git/github/jetbrains toolchain setup, but each student should be doing their own work. You can of course use my "as long as you are just talking and no one is on a recording device like a computer" guidelines to point each other at good libraries to do this work.



Tools: Use the the correct Jetbrains IDE for your language of choice (see below). If you are using VSCode you need a readme about any an all extensions that you use since VScode tends to be extension heavy. If you are doing VScode, be sure to send more detailed running instructions, especially for java. If you have not yet done so, activate your jetbrains student account to get one year of academic use of the jetbrains professional development tools.



Version Control: In this class we will use git for version control.

We will use github for the first project (and likely the second as well). If you have not already done so, make a github account – and send me your github ID via an official electronic communications mechanism (BSU email or slack/MSTeams ). It is free for the kind of stuff we are doing in class.



Programming languages: You may use one of several programming languages for this first project so long as you make it works on my machine (not just yours). With that in mind the following language are supported in this class.



Sprint 1: Getting some Show data

Due: Wed Feb 2nd at 11:59pm (though I'll assign sprint that week as well)



  1. Create a project in your jetbrain's IDE for your language of choice. Be sure to include your name in your project name (for example jsantoreIMDBProject would be a fine name for me to use for this project. I have 60+ students doing some variation of this project and so I'll have a lot of problems with dozens of "project1" projects.

  2. Add the project to git using either the built in jetbrains tools or command line git

  3. share the project on github using either the built in jetbrains tools or command line git. Be sure to include any build files that I need.

  4. Add the appropriate github actions script to your github project, be sure to include a test runner (though we will use  and a linter.


  1. Register with IMDB for an API key to get their data: https://imdb-api.com/Identity/Account/Register

  2. Have a look at the IMDB API documentation: https://imdb-api.com/api
  3. write a program which will (in at least three methods/functions so you can test properly)

  1. For this first sprint, just save the data to a file:

    1. when saving to a file, write each of the top 205 shows in a nice easy to read format, then make sure there is a separator (a blank line or some other easy to identify line so I can see where each one begins and ends easily.
    2. put the 5 user ratings at the top of the file
  2. Be Sure to use the “secrets file” approach so you don’t commit your api-key to github and push your project

  3. Write a readme.md for your project in the github project (you can do it with your jetbrains IDE if you like)

    1. the readme should have

      1. your name

      2. any install and run directions I need beyond the basics.

      3. a brief description of what your project does

      4. a brief description of what is missing from the project (if anything)

  4. make me a collaborator on the project

    1. to submit, make me a collaborator on your project. I'll git clone it, run it and the tests and linter, make an innocuous change to your project, and make sure the github actions work and grade based on these things.



As Part of my grading for at least one sprint – usually this first one, I generally make a small commit to your project and push it to github. Be prepared to do a merge between your work and mine.



This project is as much about getting all of the tools and devops stuff setup and working properly as it is about getting the code to work right. You can find the grading distribution in the Project1Sprint1Grading file