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) static and dynamic analysis for programs, and (4) concurrent and distributed software. Student assignments involve engagement with complex software such as distributed massively multi-player game systems and frameworks for graphical user interaction.
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 your software
- Understand principles of concurrency and distributed systems
Coordinates
Tu/Th noon - 1:20 p.m. in Wean 7500
mhilton@cmu.edu
WEH 5122
Both instructors have an open door policy: If either of 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 29 | Course introduction and course infrastructure | ||
| Wed, Aug 30 | rec 1 Introduction to course infrastructure | ||
| Thu, Aug 31 | Design for change: Subtype polymorphism, information hiding, contracts | Optional: Java Precisely (e.g., Sec. 4, 9, 10, 22) | |
| Tue, Sep 5 | Introduction to Java, and unit testing | Effective Java, Items 13 and 14 | |
| Wed, Sep 6 | rec 2 Unit testing, continuous integration | ||
| Thu, Sep 7 | Behavioral subtyping | Optional: Effective Java, Items 8, 9, 56; UML and Patterns, Ch. 16 | hw1 Intro to OO and course infrastructure |
| Tue, Sep 12 | Design for reuse: Delegation and inheritance | Effective Java, Items 15 and 39 | |
| Wed, Sep 13 | rec 3 Behavioral subtyping | ||
| Thu, Sep 14 | Introduction to design patterns, and design patterns for reuse | Optional: Effective Java, Items 16, 17, and 18 | hw2 Polymorphism, unit testing |
| Tue, Sep 19 | Design patterns for reuse, continued | UML and Patterns, Ch. 9 and 10 | |
| Wed, Sep 20 | rec 4 Inheritance and delegation | ||
| Thu, Sep 21 | Object-oriented analysis: Modeling a problem domain | Optional: UML and Patterns, Ch. 17; Effective Java, Item 38, 43, and 57 | hw3 Inheritance and delegation |
| Tue, Sep 26 | Responsibility assignment | UML and Patterns, Ch. 14, 15, and 16 | |
| Wed, Sep 27 | rec 5 Design process | ||
| Thu, Sep 28 | Midterm exam 1 | ||
| Tue, Oct 3 | Analysis | ||
| Wed, Oct 4 | rec 6 Design patterns | ||
| Thu, Oct 5 | Introduction to Concurrency and GUIs | hw4a Designing complex software | |
| Tue, Oct 10 | Design case study: Java Swing | UML and Patterns, Ch. 26.1 and 26.4 | |
| Wed, Oct 11 | rec 7 Introduction to GUIs | ||
| Thu, Oct 12 | Design case study: Java Collections & I/O | Optional: Effective Java, Item 1 | |
| Tue, Oct 17 | Performance | Effective Java, Items 5, 6, and 51 | |
| Wed, Oct 18 | rec 8 GUIs++ | ||
| Thu, Oct 19 | Design for large-scale reuse: Libraries & frameworks | hw4b Design to implementation | |
| Tue, Oct 24 | Designing APIs | Effective Java, Items 40, 48, 50, and 52 | |
| Wed, Oct 25 | rec 9 Frameworks | ||
| Thu, Oct 26 | Designing APIs, continued | Optional: Effective Java, Items 41 and 42 | hw4c GUI implementation |
| Tue, Oct 31 | Concurrency: Java Primitives | ||
| Wed, Nov 1 | rec 10 Git and Github++ | ||
| Thu, Nov 2 | Midterm exam 2 | ||
| Tue, Nov 7 | Concurrency: Java Primitives, continued | Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 11.3 and 11.4 | hw5a Framework design |
| Wed, Nov 8 | rec 11 Framework presentations | ||
| Thu, Nov 9 | Concurrency: Safety, Structuring applications | ||
| Tue, Nov 14 | Concurrency: Parallelizing algorithms, concurrency frameworks | Optional: Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 10 | hw5b Framework and plugin implementation |
| Wed, Nov 15 | rec 12 Concurrency | ||
| Thu, Nov 16 | Design case study: Java functional APIs and streams | ||
| Tue, Nov 21 | More design patterns | Optional: Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 12 | hw5c Plugins for others' frameworks |
| Wed, Nov 22 | No recitation: Thanskgiving | ||
| Thu, Nov 23 | No lecture: Thanksgiving | ||
| Tue, Nov 28 | Architectural Patterns | ||
| Wed, Nov 29 | rec 13 Java concurrency framework | ||
| Thu, Nov 30 | Toward software engineering in practice (incl. teams and process) | ||
| Tue, Dec 5 | Developer tools and devops | ||
| Wed, Dec 6 | rec 14 Java streams and functional programming | ||
| Thu, Dec 7 | Developer tools and devops 2 | hw6 Concurrency/distributed systems | |
| TBD | Final exam (date and time TBD) |