Overview
Software engineers today are less likely to design data structures and algorithms from scratch and more likely to build systems from library and framework components. In this course, students engage with concepts related to the construction of software systems at scale, building on their understanding of the basic building blocks of data structures, algorithms, program structures, and computer structures. The course covers technical topics in four areas: (1) concepts of design for complex systems, (2) object oriented programming, (3) techniques for robustness, including testing and static and dynamic analysis for programs, and (4) concurrent software. Students will gain concrete experience designing and building medium-sized systems. This course substantially improves its students' ability to apply general computer science knowledge to real-world problems using real-world tools and techniques.
After completing this course, students will:
- Be comfortable with object-oriented concepts and with programming in the Java language
- Have experience designing medium-scale systems with patterns
- Have experience testing and analyzing software
- Understand principles of concurrency and be able to build concurrent software
Coordinates
Tu/Th 12:00 - 1:20 p.m. in Wean 7500
jbloch@gmail.com
WEH 5311
The instructors have an open door policy: If the instructors' office doors are open and no-one else is meeting with us, we are happy to answer any course-related questions. For appointments, email the instructors.
Course Syllabus and Policies
The syllabus covers course overview and objectives, evaluation, time management, recommended books, late work policy, and collaboration policy.Learning Goals
The learning goals describe what we want students to know or be able to do by the end of the semester. We evaluate whether learning goals have been achieved through assignments and exams.Course Calendar
Schedule
We are expecting several changes to the course this semester. The schedule below is a draft based on previous instances of the course and is likely to change.
| Date | Topic | Reading assignments* | Assignments due* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tue, Aug 28 | Course introduction and course infrastructure | ||
| Wed, Aug 29 | rec 1 Introduction to course infrastructure | ||
| Thu, Aug 30 | Introduction to Java + Design for change: Information hiding | Optional: Java Precisely (e.g., Sec. 4, 9, 10, 22) | |
| Tue, Sep 4 | Design for change, information hiding | Effective Java, Items 15 and 16 | |
| Wed, Sep 5 | rec 2 Unit testing, continuous integration | ||
| Thu, Sep 6 | Specification and unit testing | Optional: Effective Java, Items 10, 11, 68; UML and Patterns, Ch. 16 | hw1 Intro to OO and course infrastructure |
| Tue, Sep 11 | Design for reuse: Delegation and inheritance | Effective Java, Items 17 and 50 | |
| Wed, Sep 12 | rec 3 Behavioral subtyping | ||
| Thu, Sep 13 | Introduction to design patterns, and design patterns for reuse | Optional: Effective Java, Items 18, 19, and 20 | hw2 Polymorphism, unit testing |
| Tue, Sep 18 | Design patterns for reuse, continued | UML and Patterns, Ch. 9 and 10 | |
| Wed, Sep 19 | rec 4 Inheritance and delegation | ||
| Thu, Sep 20 | Object-oriented analysis: Modeling a problem domain | Optional: UML and Patterns, Ch. 17; Effective Java, Item 49, 54, and 69 | hw3 Inheritance and delegation |
| Tue, Sep 25 | Object-oriented design: Responsibility assignment | UML and Patterns, Ch. 14, 15, and 16 | |
| Wed, Sep 26 | rec 5 Design process | ||
| Thu, Sep 27 | Midterm exam 1 | ||
| Tue, Oct 2 | Tis a gift to be simple | ||
| Wed, Oct 3 | rec 6 Design patterns | ||
| Thu, Oct 4 | Defensive programming, immutability, and more testing | hw4a Designing complex software | |
| Tue, Oct 9 | Introduction to multi-threading and GUIs | UML and Patterns, Ch. 26.1 and 26.4 | |
| Wed, Oct 10 | rec 7 Introduction to GUIs | ||
| Thu, Oct 11 | Design case study: Java Collections | Optional: Effective Java, Item 1 | |
| Tue, Oct 16 | Design case study: Java I/O, maybe reflection | Effective Java, Items 6, 7, and 63 | |
| Wed, Oct 17 | rec 8 GUIs++ | ||
| Thu, Oct 18 | Design for large-scale reuse: Libraries & frameworks | hw4b Design to implementation | |
| Tue, Oct 23 | Designing APIs | Effective Java, Items 51, 60, 62, and 64 | |
| Wed, Oct 24 | rec 9 Frameworks | ||
| Thu, Oct 25 | Designing APIs, continued | Optional: Effective Java, Items 52 and 53 | hw4c GUI implementation |
| Tue, Oct 30 | Concurrency: Java Primitives | ||
| Wed, Oct 31 | rec 10 Git and Github++ | ||
| Thu, Nov 1 | Midterm exam 2 | ||
| Tue, Nov 6 | Concurrency: Java Primitives, continued | Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 11.3 and 11.4 | hw5a Framework design |
| Wed, Nov 7 | rec 11 Framework presentations | ||
| Thu, Nov 8 | Concurrency: Safety, Structuring applications | Optional: Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 10 | |
| Tue, Nov 13 | Concurrency: Parallelizing algorithms, concurrency frameworks | Optional: Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 12 | hw5b Framework and plugin implementation |
| Wed, Nov 14 | rec 12 Concurrency | ||
| Thu, Nov 15 | Design case study: Java functional APIs and streams | ||
| Mon, Nov 19 | No lecture Monday, but homework is due: | hw5c Plugins for others' frameworks | |
| Tue, Nov 20 | Toward software engineering in practice | ||
| Wed, Nov 21 | No recitation: Thanksgiving | ||
| Thu, Nov 22 | No lecture: Thanksgiving | ||
| Tue, Nov 27 | Developer tools and devops | ||
| Wed, Nov 28 | rec 13 Java concurrency framework | ||
| Thu, Nov 29 | Developer tools and devops 2 | ||
| Tue, Dec 4 | Design pattern tour | ||
| Wed, Dec 5 | rec 14 Java functional APIs and streams | hw6 Concurrency | |
| Thu, Dec 6 | A puzzling finale | ||
| Sun, Dec 16 | Final exam |