Syllabus for SSE 657

Object-Oriented Project Methods

Early version; changes are very likely.

Fall Semester 2010 (10F)

Instructor: Dr. Paul E. MacNeil

Office:       Suite 223a, School of Engineering

Phone:       478-301-2185

Email:        macneil_pe@mercer.edu

Textbooks and Supplies:

Texts (including web sites):

• "Applying UML and Patterns" (3rd ed.) by Craig Larman, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-148906-2 (Required) Check Out This Text
• "Writing Effective Use Cases" (1st ed.) by Alistair Cockburn, Addison Wesley, ISBN 0-201-70225-8 (Recommended) Check Out This Text

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Software (including web sites):

• Note that this course is intended to be OS neutral.
• An Internet ftp client of your choice.  Core FTP LE is free and works well http://www.coreftp.com/ .  (Required, but your choice)

Other Useful Resources (including web sites):

Catalog Description (Course Purpose):

Covers the software development life cycle. General object oriented analysis techniques (OOA) for software and system specifications are presented and applied to develop application domain models and requirements specifications. Techniques for transforming the requirements specifications into designs are presented and applied to develop language independent object oriented designs (OOD). A modern specification language such as UML will beused. Iterative and incremental software processes.

This course begins on August 24, 2010.

Course Objectives:

Breadth and Depth in Defining, Analyzing, and Solving Complex Problems:

• After successfully completing this course, you should be able to demonstrate a basic capability to apply object-oriented project techniques to solve complex problems.

Communicate Technical Aspects of the Solution for Complex Software Engineering Problems to a Technical Audience:

• After successfully completing this course, you should be able to demonstrate a basic ability to communicate regarding the application of object-oriented project techniques to a technical audience.

Prerequisites:

SSE 550.

Class Location:

• The Online Learning asynchronous "meetings" take place in Cyberspace; i.e., on the Internet.

Grading:

More information about grading is contained in the General Project Rubric .

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Assignments:

• Purpose of projects:
• • Use the projects to develop your capabilities, and
  • Use the projects to demonstrate your capabilities.
• Deliverables for all projects:
• • Projects may be delivered either via the course wiki or via the course FTP site; both of these will be announced.
  • Your report, if delivered via the FTP site should be a single, standalone document .doc format, or a single set of appropriately linked html pages.
  • Your report should be organized in such a way as to make the topics that you want credit for covering easy to find, and demonstrate your capabilities clearly and convincingly. Everything you want considered for credit, including code and tests (including test results), should be included in the report.
  • Each project can be a single, integrated project that tries to actually do something, or a collection of exercises that demonstrate your capabilities but don't accomplish anything else, or any combination of these two alternatives that you find convenient.
  • You may include other material outside of the report (on the FTP site), if you wish, but this material may or may not be considered in evaluating your work.
  • For each capability that you demonstrate within a report or major section of that report, you may present only the final result of your work; you need not demonstrate every step in the development of that result.

• Some suggestions for doing a project are contained in the One Way to Do a Project page.

• Project Delivery

• • The project reports will be delivered via the course wiki.

• Project 1(Solo)
• Pick a system (to be developed) of your own choosing.
• Use this system to develop and demonstrate your capabilities in Larman ch. 1 - 20 (supplemented by Cockburn, if you sue Cockburn's book).
• TDD not yet required. (You don't have to develop the test cases first, or even at all.)
• Your report should be organized into two major parts, Inception and Elaboration Iteration 1. You may wish to consider having separate sections within these major parts corresponding to each of the chapters for which you are demonstrating your capabilities.
• For Inception, the following chapters of Larman should be covered in your work: 4, 5, and 6. In terms of Table 4.1 (p. 50), "Vision and Business Case" and "Use-Case Model" are absolutely essential, and other artifacts from that table can and should be considered for inclusion in the Inception part of your report.
• For Elaboration Iteration 1, the following chapters of Larman should be covered in your work: 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,and 20. Your design work should reflect an understanding of ch. 14. Chapters 8 and 12 are overview chapters. Your work in the chapters listed above should demonstrate an understanding of them, but you do not need to have separate report sections demonstrating your capabilities with regard to these chapters.
• Each of the techniques design-to-code translation techniques from chapter 20 should be demonstrated throught the development of skeletal code, which should compile and run, but need not perform any substantive function. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate that you can perform these techniques. The code should closely follow the design; this is very important. The code should also "make sense"; that is, it should be appropriate for this project and for your system. The code need not be extensive, and this part of the project should not consume a lot of your time.
• Project 2 (Solo)
• Improve your Project 1 by the use of TDD and the contents of Larman's "Elaboration Iteration 2" (Larman chapters 21 - 26).
• Skeletal code is again called for, this time to demonstrate both that you can translate the design into code that closely follows the design, and to verify that your overall design "makes sense".
• TDD required.
• Please raise any issues or questions via the course listserv.
• Project 3 (Team)
• Pick a new system (not one used by any team member for Project 1 or Project 2).
• This is an opportunity to show what you can do with a project. You can demonstrate Inception through Elaboration Iteration 2 by "just" doing a good job on them and including your work products in your report with little or no explanation other than the products themselves. Please do try to include at least some work from Elaboration Iteration 3, with good explanations of your work with those topics.
• You should imagine that a wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity has come along, and your only way to get that job is by impressing the hiring manager with this report. Show how good you are! Show what you can do!
• Skeletal code is again called for, this time to demonstrate both that you can translate the design into code that closely follows the design, and to verify that your overall design "makes sense".
• Make use of techniques from Larman's "Elaboration Iteration 3 - Intermediate Topics". You should select techniques/topics from this part of Larman's text based on the applicability and usefulness of those techniques for your chosen project. (Larman chapters 27 - 39).
• TDD required.
• Please raise any issues or questions via the course listserv.
• Notes on Implementation Language and Applying Chapter 20 (Projects 1, 2, and 3)
• Credit for demonstrating capabilities from chapter 20 will be given only for applying chapter 20's rules for mapping designs into code. Your source code must be derived from your documented design by applying these rules, rather than any other approach to coding. Correspondingly, for Project 1, you need code only enough to demonstrate that you have applied these rules correctly. For Projects 2 and 3, you will also need to make sure that you have enough code to demonstrate your testing capabilities.
• If you choose to use C# or C++ rather than Java, you will be responsible for adapting the rules of chapter 20 to produce source code in your chosen language. However, given the great commonality among object-oriented programming languages, this should not be difficult.
• TBD

Additional Information:

• Asynchronous Learning Nets (ALNs)
• • Self Study: You study the texts and any other course study material on your own.
  • Collaborative Projects: After your self-study, you collaborate (via the Internet [email, wiki]) with your partner(s) to produce a team product. Your collaborative work is substantial, asynchronous, and rapid.
  • This course is an online learning course. Please read this Online Learning web page regarding online learning in this course and this program.

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• What Do I Do?

• Subscribe to the course email listserv and be able to access our wiki. Your professor can tell you how to do this.
• Study the assigned material.
• Write and read email messages about ideas, problems and solutions to do with the assigned study material.
• Do the assigned work, deliver the assigned deliverables.
• Write and read email messages (to/from the listserv) about ideas, problems and solutions to do with the assigned homework.
• Review the deliverables produced by other people.

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Changes to this Syllabus:

There will be changes to this syllabus, so check back frequently, and don't forget to hit "Reload" or "Refresh".

Schedule of Events and Assignments:

Notes:

tbd

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List of all courses.

Contact Information

• My Name: Dr. Paul E. MacNeil (Atlanta, Macon and DL Section)
• My E-mail: macneil_pe@mercer.edu .
• My Office Phone: 478 301-2185
• My FAX: 478 301-2732
• US Mail:
• •  
  • Dr. Paul E. MacNeil
  • School of Engineering
  • Mercer University
  • 1400 Coleman Ave.
  • Macon, GA 31207

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Important Additional Information:

"Students requiring accommodations for a disability should inform the instructor at the close of the first class meeting or as soon as possible. The instructor will refer you to the Disability Support Services Coordinator to document your disability, determine eligibility for accommodations under the ADAAA/Section 504 and to request a Faculty Accommodation Form. Disability accommodations or status will not be indicated on academic transcripts. In order to receive accommodations in a class, students with sensory, learning, psychological, physical or medical disabilities must provide their instructor with a Faculty Accommodation Form to sign. Students must return the signed form to the Disability Services Coordinator. A new form must be requested each semester. Students with a history of a disability, perceived as having a disability or with a current disability who do not wish to use academic accommodations are also strongly encouraged to register with the Disability Services Coordinator and request a Faculty Accommodation Form each semester. For further information, please contact Carole Burrowbridge, Disability Services Coordinator, at 301-2778 or visit the Disability Support Services website at http://www.mercer.edu/studentaffairs/disabilityservices" * (10/09)

Accreditation: Mercer University is accredited by SACS.