Week 14 · Monday, December 7, 2026 · Room D-221
The table turns green.
For the first time since the project opened, a week with nothing else on it: no exam, no new theory, no competing deliverable. Seven days, one ranked list, and the project's biggest single grade at the end of them. This is the week the course's method either pays or sends its bill, and the method's claim is specific: a pair that pulls one rung at a time, re-runs what already worked, and updates the verification table the moment evidence exists will arrive on Monday assembling proof, not features. This hub is that week, laid out end to end, through D4's demonstration and into the freeze that protects Thursday.
The shape of the week
In the course outline
D4, the heavy milestone (15 %), is due in class Monday, December 7, the largest single grade in the course. Per the brief and the milestone's three faces: the system substantially complete, the verification table largely green with each row demonstrable on request, deploy/ holding the unit files, and the repo replicable by a stranger, the Week 1 promise kept. The Omnivox brief governs contents and marking; the class runs studio-style with demonstration slots per the in-class announcement.
The method, in one paragraph
Everything this hub adds reduces to one loop run daily: pull the top rung from the ranked list, slice it thin, build the slice, join it, re-run the old rungs, record the evidence, and only then pull the next. The ordering of the list is a value calculation, not a mood; the one-rung-in-flight rule is a defence against the place rungs actually die, which is joining, not building; the verification table is the scoreboard that makes progress a fact instead of a feeling; Monday's demonstration is the table walked out loud; and the freeze is the week's exit, because after Monday the most valuable change is no change. None of it is new. Weeks 5, 11 and 12 built every piece; this week runs them at full length for the first time.
What you will be able to do by the end of the week
- Rank rungs by value density and defend the ordering, including what you deliberately did not build.
- Run the daily build loop with one rung in flight, regression re-runs after every join, and debt journaled instead of chased.
- Keep a verification table that is green with evidence, amber with honesty, and demonstrable row by row on request.
- Demonstrate breadth in a short slot: the table as spine, live rows on request, the repo as proof.
- Freeze: distinguish the changes that protect Thursday from the changes that threaten it, and make only the first kind.
Twelve terms this week runs on
| Term | In one line | Home |
|---|---|---|
| value density | Value per hour of effort; the quantity the ranked list is sorted by | Rank |
| quick win | High value, low effort: the quadrant the week opens with | Rank |
| ninety-ninety rule | The first 90 % of the work takes 90 % of the time; the last 10 % takes the other 90 % | Rank |
| WIP limit | A cap on work in progress; this week's cap is one rung in flight per pair | Rhythm |
| regression | Something that worked, broken by a later change; caught only by re-running | Rhythm |
| technical debt | The not-quite-right code you ship knowingly; interest accrues until the rewrite | Rhythm |
| definition of done | The checklist a rung must pass before it counts: joined, re-run, recorded, tagged | Rhythm |
| traceability | Every green cell has a path back to a requirement and forward to its evidence | Scoreboard |
| breadth | Many requirements at "works and is proven" beats one requirement polished; D4's axis | D4 day |
| the stranger test | Could someone rebuild the system from the repo alone? A D4 face, from the Week 1 promise | D4 day |
| freeze | The point after which change rules tighten: only what restores green gets in | Freeze |
| walking skeleton · rung | Still the unit of everything above; the words have not changed since Week 12 | W12 |
Where this fits in the course
Week 13 · Nov 30
Final examination & D3: one day, two proofs
The half-width day behind you: exam cleared, D3's rung landed, and the D4 list ranked on the way out the door.
Week 14 · Dec 7 · this hub
D4 build week
The clear run: six build days, the heavy milestone demonstrated, and the freeze that hands D5 a system nobody is still changing.
Week 15 · Thu Dec 10
D5: the public demonstration
10 %: the frozen system performed live. Cause the disturbance, let the dashboard narrate, answer anything.
Working at home
This week, home is the course: the build days happen at your bench, on the pair's own schedule, with the daily loop as the only timetable. Two fixed points come from Monday's exit and belong on the calendar now: the midweek triage (Friday at the latest, the checkpoint has the questions) and the last join on Sunday, December 6, so that Monday owes you demonstration, not development. The pair that texts "which rung are you on?" and gets one answer, not a list, is running the week correctly.