CS446 - Tools and Processes for Software

Fall 1999 Monday, Wednesday: 3:15 - 4:30, Building 260, Room 113

Schedule (plus slides for some of the talks)

Sign up

If you want to participate in this class, please send an email to cs446@db.stanford.edu with your name as subject and with the body containing your email address, your department, degree pursuing, if you take the class for credits and for how many credits. If you have prior knowledge or experience with UML, other modeling techniques or design patterns, or have taken other classes about software engineering, please note that down as well.

News about CS446

Handouts for assignment 5a and 5b are in the box outside the office of Anca-Juliana Stoica.
You can substitute assignment 4c by either 5a and 5b, details see email I sent you.
Assignment 5 is posted (you can choose between 5a and 5b).
Additional office hour on Monday, Oct 25, from 1 to 2:30pm. No office hours on Wednesday, Oct 27 and Friday, Oct 29.
Assignment 3 is up on the web, its new due date is Oct 27.
Whoever does not receive emails about cs446 should send an email to cs446@db.
Assignment 2 is due Oct 20 instead of Oct 18. Additional office hours from 1 to 3 pm on Oct 18.
As an exception the lecture on Oct 13 is in Gates 104 and not in 260-113.
Office hour on Wednesday, Oct 13, is from 2 to 3 instead of 1 to 2 pm.
Additional reading assignment for Monday, Oct 11. If you have signed up, you should have gotten an email about it.
You can get handouts that cannot be printed out from the schedule web page from the box in front of the office Gates 418.

Instructors

	Gio Wiederhold	Dorothea Beringer	Anca-Juliana Stoica
mail	gio@cs.stanford.edu	beringer@db.stanford.edu	stoica@db.stanford.edu
Office	Gates 433	Gates 418	Gates 443
Office Hours	By appointment through Marianne Siroker (siroker@cs).	Wednesday 1:00 to 2:00 Friday 2:00 to 3:00 (most Fridays)	Monday, Wednesday: 4:45 to 6 pm, or by appointment

Course Description

CS446 course has the goal to give you an overview of the most important elements of software engineering. We will not be able to expand on all the various topics in depth, but we will give you the necessary foundation for further studies in specific topics of software engineering during your career as software engineers. Topics that we will cover more in depth are modeling software systems with UML, software development processes, software cost estimation, component oriented software development, and software reuse. To some of the topics there will be additional reading and assignments.

Prerequisites

This course is primarily for graduate students and it requires some prior experience in developing software in order to facilitate the understanding why processes and tools are needed in larger software projects. Knowing object-oriented programming and either Java or C++ is strongly encouraged, some assignments require the knowledge of the basic object-oriented concepts (classes, objects, inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation, composition).

Credits

Three units for the whole course.
One unit for the classes about UML and software development methodologies, reading about UML, and the assignments about UML and Reverse Engineering, and the first 4 weeks of lectures.
There will be no final. The grades will be based on the assignments and class participation.

Mandatory Reading

The following two books are mandatory for taking this class:

"UML distilled", by Martin Fowler, second edition 1999 (ISBN: 020165783X)or first edition 1997 (ISBN: 0201325632) (contains just the essentials, good introduction). Alternatives to "UML distilled" are: "UML Toolkit", by Eriksson and Penker, 1998 (more in depth), "Using UML", by R. Pooley and P.Stevens, 1999, or another UML book covering the basic UML notations and preferably also the Unified Process
"Design Patterns, Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software", (ISBN: 0201633612) by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides, 1994/95 (this is a high quality and the classic book about design patterns, also called the GoF book). Alternatives to the Design Pattern book of the GoF are: "Patterns in Java, Volume 1" by Mark Grand, 1998 (contains all of the GoF design patterns and applies them to Java, not as good as the other book)

The following papers have to be read as preparation for certain lectures (they will be distributed in the class):

"No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering", for Sept. 27
"A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement", for Oct. 6
A case study for the lecture on software reuse organizations, for Oct. 13
"Risk Management for Software Development", for Oct. 16
"Software Cost Estimation", "Estimating work with use cases", for Nov. 17
"Reviews and Audits"

Assignments

The assignments differ heavily in the amount of time required. It is up to you to plan your assignment work so you can finish them in time.

Put your assignments either into the box in front of the office Gates 418 before 3pm, or bring them to the class.

Reading

see Mandatory Reading, you need the reading for the other assignments, so I recommend you to read the UML book in week 2 and 3, and to read the Design Pattern book in week 5 and 6.

Modeling with UML

Assignment 1: Actors and Use Cases, Domain Model, to work on in week 2 and 3 (due Oct. 11, 3:15pm)
Assignment 2: Design Model and Interaction diagrams, to work on in week 4 (due Oct. 20, 3:15pm)

Reverse Engineering

Assignment 3: Given a small software package and an incomplete use case model, make the interaction diagrams, the class diagram, a state chart, and try to model two additional features, to work on in week 4 and 5 (due Oct. 27, 3:15 pm)

Design Patterns

Assignment 4 (to work on in week 6, 7 and 8):

Design Pattern Summary
Creating credit card objects: use design patterns
Minesweeper: model the minesweeper and detect what design patterns you have used

Assignment 4a and 4b: due Nov. 8, 3:15 pm
Assignment 4c: due Nov. 15, 3:15 pm. If you do not want to do another assignment on design patterns, you can substitute assignment 4c by either 5a or 5b (and hand in 5a as well as 5b to Anca-Juliana Stoica by Dec. 3).

Tools for Software

Assignment 5 (to work on in week 9, 10 and 11):Use an existing tool for implementing software cost estimation techniques or build a tool implementing sofware risk management techniques. You can choose between solving 5a or 5b.

Due date: Friday, Dec.3 at 3:15 pm (assignments handed in after Dec. 3, 3:15, cannot be considered for the final grade!). Hand in the assignment to Anca-Juliana Stoica.

Please address questions about this assignment to Anca-Juliana Stoica, and not to Dorothea Beringer.

Late policy

The due dates given are the latest possible date for turning in the assignments. The assignments are given well in advance, and I recommend you to start early and to hand them in the Friday before they are due. So you have three more days in case something does not work out as planned.

Optional Reading

The Mythical Man Month, by Brooks: a short and very entertaining book containing many lessons still true nowadays about a large, complex software project - a classic book every computer scientist should have read
Software Architecture : Perspectives on an Emerging Discipline, by Mary Shaw, Garlan David, David Garlan
Pattern Oriented Software Architecture : A System of Patterns, by Frank Buschmann et. al
Software Engineering - A Holistic View, by Bruce I. Blum
Software Engineering - A Practitioner's Approach, by Roger S. Pressman
Software Engineering, by Ian Sommerville