Milestone 3: Quality, Documentation, and Delivery

From Unit Tests to Final Submission

Author

Chuck Nelson

Published

October 26, 2025

1 Milestone 3: Quality, Documentation, and Delivery

Tip🎯 Welcome to the Final Milestone!

In this capstone milestone, you will learn the professional practices that separate a working program from a finished product: automated testing, clear documentation, and final project submission.

1.1 Overview & Learning Journey

Welcome to your final milestone! You have successfully designed, implemented, and debugged a functional Java application. The focus now shifts from building the code to verifying and documenting it. This is a crucial part of the software development lifecycle where you ensure your code is robust, reliable, and understandable to others.

In this milestone, you will step into the role of a Quality Assurance (QA) engineer and a technical writer. You will first write a suite of automated unit tests to prove your code works as expected and handles errors correctly. Then, you will document your code using the industry-standard Javadoc tool, generating a professional API documentation website. Finally, you will follow a checklist to prepare and submit your completed project. These final steps are what elevate a personal project into a professional portfolio piece.

1.2 What You’ll Accomplish

By the end of this milestone, you will have successfully:

  • Written and executed automated unit tests for your application logic using the JUnit framework.
  • Verified both “happy path” successes and “sad path” failures, confirming that your custom exceptions are thrown correctly.
  • Authored professional code documentation for your classes and methods using Javadoc comments.
  • Generated a complete HTML documentation website from your source code.
  • Prepared and submitted a final, polished project using Git and GitHub Classroom.

1.3 Course Learning Objectives Alignment

The tasks in this milestone directly support the following Program and Course Learning Outcomes.

Module Task Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs)
Unit Testing Use current tools (2), Apply concepts (3), Implement solutions (5) Compile, debug, and test (2)
Code Documentation Communicate (1), Use current tools (2) Document programs (7)
Project Submission Use current tools (2), Maintain environment (6) N/A

1.4 Learning Objectives & Professional Alignment

The exercises in this module are designed to build specific, marketable skills that align directly with the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) of a Computer Programmer (O*NET SOC Code 15-1251.00).

Module Task O*NET KSAs Technologies Used
Unit Testing Skills: Quality Control Analysis, Programming, Critical Thinking
Abilities: Deductive Reasoning, Problem Sensitivity		 Program testing software: JUnit, Apache Maven
Code Documentation Skills: Communication, Reading Comprehension, Attention to Detail
Abilities: Written Expression		 Documentation and support software: Javadoc
Project Submission Skills: Following Instructions, Project Management Version control software: Git, GitHub Classroom

1.5 Tools & Development Environment

This milestone focuses on the professional tools used to finalize a software project.

Key concepts to master:

  • @Test annotation: Marks a method as a test case that can be run automatically.
  • @BeforeEach annotation: Designates a method to be run before each test, perfect for setting up a clean state.
  • Assertions: Using methods like assertEquals() and assertNotNull() to verify that your code produces the expected outcome.
  • Exception Testing: Using assertThrows() to confirm that your code correctly throws exceptions under error conditions.

Example Test:

import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.*;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;

class AppTest {
    @Test
    void testAddTask_Success() {
        TaskManager manager = new TaskManager();
        manager.addTask(new Task("Test Title", "..."));
        assertEquals(1, manager.getTasks().size());
    }

    @Test
    void testFindTask_ThrowsException() {
        TaskManager manager = new TaskManager();
        assertThrows(TaskNotFoundException.class, () -> {
            manager.findTaskById(99);
        });
    }
}

Key features to master:

  • Javadoc Comments: Writing comments that start with /** and end with */.
  • Block Tags: Using @param to describe method parameters, @return to describe the return value, and @throws to document exceptions a method can throw.
  • Documentation Generation: Running mvn javadoc:javadoc to create a full HTML website from your comments.

Example Javadoc:

/**
 * Finds a task by its unique identifier.
 *
 * @param taskId The ID of the task to find.
 * @return The found Task object.
 * @throws TaskNotFoundException if no task with the given ID exists.
 */
public Task findTaskById(int taskId) throws TaskNotFoundException { ... }

Key commands for submission:

  • git add .: Stages all new and modified files for the next commit.
  • git commit -m "Message": Creates a permanent snapshot of your project with a descriptive message.
  • git push: Uploads your final commits to GitHub Classroom for grading.
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