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 3:00 - 4:20 p.m. in Doherty Hall A302
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, Jan 14 | Course introduction and course infrastructure | ||
| Wed, Jan 15 | rec 1 Introduction to course infrastructure | ||
| Thu, Jan 16 | Introduction to Java | Optional: Java Precisely (e.g., Sec. 4, 9, 10, 22) | |
| Tue, Jan 21 | Design for change, information hiding | Effective Java, Items 15 and 16 | |
| Wed, Jan 22 | rec 2 Unit testing, continuous integration | ||
| Thu, Jan 23 | Specification and unit testing | Optional: Effective Java, Items 10, 11, 68; UML and Patterns, Ch. 16 | hw1 Intro to OO and course infrastructure |
| Tue, Jan 28 | Design for reuse: Delegation and inheritance | Effective Java, Items 17 and 50 | |
| Wed, Jan 29 | rec 3 Behavioral subtyping | ||
| Thu, Jan 30 | Introduction to design patterns, and design patterns for reuse | Optional: Effective Java, Items 18, 19, and 20 | hw2 Polymorphism, unit testing |
| Tue, Feb 4 | Design patterns for reuse, continued | UML and Patterns, Ch. 9 and 10 | |
| Wed, Feb 5 | rec 4 Inheritance and delegation | ||
| Thu, Feb 6 | Object-oriented analysis: Modeling a problem domain | Optional: UML and Patterns, Ch. 17; Effective Java, Item 49, 54, and 69 | |
| Sun, Feb 9 | No class, but homework is due: | hw3 Design patterns for reuse | |
| Tue, Feb 11 | Object-oriented design: Responsibility assignment | UML and Patterns, Ch. 14, 15, and 16 | |
| Wed, Feb 12 | rec 5 Design process | ||
| Thu, Feb 13 | Midterm exam 1 | ||
| Tue, Feb 18 | Tis a gift to be simple | ||
| Wed, Feb 19 | rec 6 Design patterns | ||
| Thu, Feb 20 | Introduction to multi-threading and GUIs | hw4a Designing complex software | |
| Tue, Feb 25 | Design case study: Java Swing | UML and Patterns, Ch. 26.1 and 26.4 | |
| Wed, Feb 26 | rec 7 Introduction to GUIs | ||
| Thu, Feb 27 | Design case study: Java Collections | Optional: Effective Java, Item 1 | |
| Tue, Mar 3 | Design for large-scale reuse: Libraries & frameworks | Effective Java, Items 6, 7, and 63 | |
| Wed, Mar 4 | rec 8 GUIs++ | ||
| Thu, Mar 5 | Designing APIs | hw4b Design to implementation | |
| Tue, Mar 17 | Lecture cancelled | ||
| Wed, Mar 18 | rec 9 Frameworks | ||
| Thu, Mar 19 | Designing APIs, continued | Effective Java, Items 51, 60, 62, and 64 | |
| Sat, Mar 21 | No class, but homework is due | hw4c GUI implementation | |
| Tue, Mar 24 | Teams | Optional: Effective Java, Items 52 and 53 | |
| Wed, Mar 25 | rec 10 Git and Github++ | ||
| Thu, Mar 26 | Midterm exam 2 | ||
| Tue, Mar 31 | Concurrency: Java Primitives | Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 11.3 and 11.4 | hw5a Framework design |
| Wed, Apr 1 | rec 11 Framework presentations | ||
| Thu, Apr 2 | Concurrency: Java Primitives, continued | Optional: Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 10 | |
| Tue, Apr 7 | Concurrency: Safety, Structuring applications | Optional: Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 12 | hw5b Framework and plugin implementation |
| Wed, Apr 8 | rec 12 Concurrency | ||
| Thu, Apr 9 | Concurrency: Parallelizing algorithms, concurrency frameworks | ||
| Tue, Apr 14 | Design case study: Java functional APIs and streams | hw5c Plugins for others' frameworks | |
| Wed, Apr 15 | rec 13 Java concurrency framework | ||
| Thu, Apr 16 | Toward software engineering in practice | ||
| Tue, Apr 21 | Developer tools and devops | ||
| Wed, Apr 22 | rec 14 Java functional APIs and streams | ||
| Thu, Apr 23 | Devops, Monolithic repos | ||
| Tue, Apr 28 | Design pattern tour | ||
| Wed, Apr 29 | rec 15 Devops | hw6 Concurrency | |
| Thu, Apr 30 | A puzzling finale | ||
| Tue, May 5 | Final exam 5:30 - 8:30 pm EDT |