Engineering Best Practices

Engineering best practices ensure that every project in the practicum maintains high standards of quality, readability, maintainability, and reliability.
This section of the wiki contains guidance on practices that support long-term project sustainability beyond simply “writing code.”

The pages below provide standards, examples, and processes that will help your team produce high-quality software.

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Topics Covered

Testing

Learn how to validate functionality, prevent regressions, and ensure stability before code is merged. Includes:

• Unit testing fundamentals
• Integration testing concepts
• Manual & exploratory testing
• Peer review testing expectations
• Tools & frameworks used in class

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Documentation

Learn how to communicate clearly through documentation that supports teammates now and in future quarters. Includes:

• README structure & expectations
• GitHub Wiki roles & conventions
• Project onboarding documentation
• Commenting & code documentation standards
• Developer handoff & archival standards

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Why Engineering Best Practices Matter

Click to expand overview

High-quality engineering goes beyond implementing a feature — it includes ensuring the code works correctly, is easy to understand, and can be maintained by future students.

Strong engineering practices help:

✔ Reduce bugs

through continuous validation and testing

✔ Improve knowledge transfer

through consistent documentation

✔ Support future contributors

with predictable workflows and readable code

✔ Reduce overhead

by preventing repeated mistakes

These standards are core skills students are expected to develop throughout the practicum.

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Coming Soon

This section will expand to include:

• Code review best practices
• Pair programming guidelines
• Continuous improvement strategies