Planning for my Project

Question

So, no actual implementation questions here, yay no searching for syntax errors!
My project is as follows:
in general, make a graph with street intersections and streets, and then give directions
Given a list of locations, number then as they are given to you (0 ==> n-1). These will be vertices.
Also given a list of streets (edges), 2 values will be attributed to them, length, and the speed of traffic (mph) (both of which are doubles)
the list of streets gives the location where the segment begins, and the segment ends (this means its a directed graph, a 2 way street will actually be 2 streets, one in each direction two and from the 2 locations)
THEN, given a start location and an end location, find the shortest path, and the quickest path
Graph: sparse graph means i should use a 'adjacency list' implementation
that means: each cell of an array has the vertex name (street intersection) and a reference to a list of edges (streets) that are outgoing from this vertex. In the list of edges, each node of edges should have also have the info of what vertex it goes to (id number originally given, which will be the index of the vertex in this array), the distance, and the time it takes to travel the road (distance / speed)
Finding the shortest path: use Dijkstra's Algorithm
this means i need a Priority Queue implemented with a min heap (requirement). i want to implement the min heap with an arraylist
my TA says the entries in the PQ should be (key, vertex), and the key is a double, and that the entries need to be location aware. i believe that means the vertex has a reference to the 'node' in the minheap.
any questions? lol [http://www.ics.uci.edu/~goodrich/teach/ics23/LabManual/RockAndRoll/|http://www.ics.uci.edu/~goodrich/teach/ics23/LabManual/RockAndRoll/]
so what i'm confused about is... what are the objects i need? i know it sounds like i just wrote them down, but i'm kind of disoriented.
should i make a edge object, a vertex object, and then an entry object? any advice on the organization of this is greatly appreciated... my TA kinda told us really quickly basically what to do, but it went way over my head.

Answer 1

JoachimSauer wrote:
ramenmeal wrote:
so what i'm confused about is... what are the objects i need?Simplest way to start this:
Find every noun in that text and write them down in a list. Those are pretty good candidates for classes. Not all of them will need to be represented in classes, some of them may be in a hierarchy. Some may even be missing. But writing down that list should give you a first idea.
Similarly: find verbs. They might turn into your methods. See if some verbs fit well to some of the nouns you selected first.
Do this first to give an overview.Hi joa,
Hats off to you
Nice intro to OO
Op never forget this advice
Thanks