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 Hall of the Arts 160
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 27 | Course introduction and course infrastructure | ||
| Wed, Aug 28 | rec 1 Introduction to course infrastructure | ||
| Thu, Aug 29 | Introduction to Java | Optional: Java Precisely (e.g., Sec. 4, 9, 10, 22) | |
| Tue, Sep 3 | Design for change, information hiding | Effective Java, Items 15 and 16 | |
| Wed, Sep 4 | rec 2 Unit testing, continuous integration | ||
| Thu, Sep 5 | 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 10 | Design for reuse: Delegation and inheritance | Effective Java, Items 17 and 50 | |
| Wed, Sep 11 | rec 3 Behavioral subtyping | ||
| Thu, Sep 12 | Introduction to design patterns, and design patterns for reuse | Optional: Effective Java, Items 18, 19, and 20 | hw2 Polymorphism, unit testing |
| Tue, Sep 17 | Design patterns for reuse, continued | UML and Patterns, Ch. 9 and 10 | |
| Wed, Sep 18 | rec 4 Inheritance and delegation | ||
| Thu, Sep 19 | 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 24 | Object-oriented design: Responsibility assignment | UML and Patterns, Ch. 14, 15, and 16 | |
| Wed, Sep 25 | rec 5 Design process | ||
| Thu, Sep 26 | Midterm exam 1 | ||
| Tue, Oct 1 | Defensive programming, immutability, and more testing | ||
| Wed, Oct 2 | rec 6 Design patterns | ||
| Thu, Oct 3 | Introduction to multi-threading and GUIs | hw4a Designing complex software | |
| Tue, Oct 8 | Design case study: Java Swing | UML and Patterns, Ch. 26.1 and 26.4 | |
| Wed, Oct 9 | rec 7 Introduction to GUIs | ||
| Thu, Oct 10 | Design case study: Java Collections | Optional: Effective Java, Item 1 | |
| Tue, Oct 15 | Design for large-scale reuse: Libraries & frameworks | Effective Java, Items 6, 7, and 63 | |
| Wed, Oct 16 | rec 8 GUIs++ | ||
| Thu, Oct 17 | Designing APIs | hw4b Design to implementation | |
| Tue, Oct 22 | Designing APIs, continued | Effective Java, Items 51, 60, 62, and 64 | |
| Wed, Oct 23 | rec 9 Frameworks | ||
| Thu, Oct 24 | Software engineering projects and teams | Optional: Effective Java, Items 52 and 53 | hw4c GUI implementation |
| Tue, Oct 29 | Concurrency: Java Primitives | ||
| Wed, Oct 30 | rec 10 Git and Github++ | ||
| Thu, Oct 31 | Midterm exam 2 | ||
| Tue, Nov 5 | Concurrency: Java Primitives, continued | Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 11.3 and 11.4 | hw5a Framework design |
| Wed, Nov 6 | rec 11 Framework presentations | ||
| Thu, Nov 7 | Concurrency: Safety, Structuring applications | Optional: Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 10 | |
| Tue, Nov 12 | Concurrency: Parallelizing algorithms, concurrency frameworks | Optional: Java Concurrency in Practice, Ch. 12 | hw5b Framework and plugin implementation |
| Wed, Nov 13 | rec 12 Concurrency | ||
| Thu, Nov 14 | Design case study: Java functional APIs and streams | ||
| Tue, Nov 19 | Toward software engineering in practice | hw5c Plugins for others' frameworks | |
| Wed, Nov 20 | rec 13 Java concurrency framework | ||
| Thu, Nov 21 | Developer tools and devops | ||
| Tue, Nov 26 | Design pattern tour | ||
| Wed, Nov 27 | No recitation: Thanksgiving | ||
| Thu, Nov 28 | No lecture: Thanksgiving | ||
| Tue, Dec 3 | Software engineering anti-patterns | ||
| Wed, Dec 4 | rec 14 Java functional APIs and streams | hw6 Concurrency | |
| Thu, Dec 5 | A puzzling finale | ||
| Mon, Dec 9 | Final exam, 1 - 4 p.m. |