Section 1

Dr. Thomas Way

M 1/14

Assignment: Read the Agile Software Development handout and prepare a single paragraph arguing in favor or against the use of this approach on a software project. Feel free to use other online references in forming your opinion. Email this document to me by the start of class on Jan. 28, and be prepared to argue your case.

Assignment: As a team, produce a web site for your project containing your team name, names of members, and a description of your proposed project. Email the URL of your web site to me by the start of class on Jan. 30.

Assignment: As a team, create a project proposal for your project of 2-3 pages, including a description of the project, one or more diagrams of the user interface, a timeline for development of no more than 3 months and a budget of no more than $100,000. Post this on your project web site by the start of class on Feb. 4.

Assignment: Prepare three written questions on a sheet of paper and turn in to me at the beginning of class. The questions should be serious, and can be about software engineering in general, careers, agile software development, etc.

Assignment: Prepare a revised project proposal based on feedback from in-class evaluation and notes from Dr. Way, and post on your project web site by the start of class on Feb. 13.

Career Fair: Find a summer job and a future career at the Career Fair in the Villanova Room of the Connolly Center, Feb. 6 from 3-7pm.

Assignment: Deadline extended for revised project proposal to Feb. 15. Revised proposal should be posted to your project web site by the start of class on Friday, Feb. 15.

Assignment: Prepare three questions for the Monday guest speakers, who work for a small software engineering company.

In class: We will discuss software specifications and then briefly review the study guide and strategize for the midterm exam.

Managing Details in a Specification
Design Specifications - How much detail is enough?
In-class: Write an algorithm for how to make a Peanut Butter and Jelly (PB&J) sandwich, email it to me, and we will review them in class.

Assignment: Read the article "Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software" by Richard Stallman, prepare a one page, typed review of the article, and hand it in at the start of class on Monday Feb. 25. In addition to summarizing the article, provide your opinion on Stallman's conclusion, and be sure to justify your opinion. For fun, check out the Wikipedia entry for Richard Stallman, and look at his personal site.

Report from Game Developers Conference 2008 (Stephen Walter attended).
[link1][link2][link3][link4][link5][link6]

Functional Specification Tutorial (15 pages)
Example: Project Aardvark Functional Specification (20 pages)
Example: Time Monitoring Tool Software Requirements Specification (18 pages)
Example: MRC-II System Software Requirements Specification (15 pages)
Example: Intel Serial ATA Advanced Host Controller Interface Software Specification (127 pages)
Example: SCATS Sales and Customer Tracking System Software Requirements Specification (18 pages)
Example: KeePass Password Safe Software Requirements Specification (29 pages)

Assignment: Work with your project development team to produce a first draft of a complete software specification. You can follow the formal IEEE template, or customize one of the examples to your specific product's needs. First draft should be completed and posted to your team web site by Wednesday, March 26, 2008. You can email intermediate drafts to me for feedback, which will result in a much stronger specification and probably a much better grade.

Assignment: Locate a link to a good online article about Agile development and email the link to me by Wed. March 12 along with a one or two sentence description of the article. These will be posted on our course web site.

In Class: We will discuss the design problems from the midterm, exchange ideas, and see where the design process leads us.

Assignment: Continue to work with your team on your first draft of the software specification.

In Class: Introduction to the topic. Note that class may end a few minutes early on this day. Dr. Way will demonstrate some basic refactoring techniques in class.

Assignment: Continue to work with your team on your first draft of the software specification. Due date has been refactored to Friday, March 28.

In class: We will install and use Eclipse (if possible on the lab machines), or at the very least Dr. Way will conduct a tutorial and demonstrate a number of the cool features that can make your life really easy as a software engineer and programmer.

Assignment: Continue to work with your team on your first draft of the software specification. Due date has been refactored to Friday, March 28. I highly recommend sending a draft to me before or during the Easter weekend for comment so you can adjust if needed prior to the March 28 deadline.

Bonus: Mr. McCoey will don a straitjacket. Will he escape? No.

In class: Lecture material about Refactoring.

Due today: The complete draft of your team's software specification must be posted to your project web site by the start of class today, Friday, March 28, 2008. 

In class: Review of team project specifications. Dr. Way will review all specifications over the 3/28-3/30 weekend, and we will review the specifications during class today (3/31).

Review of team project specifications (cont'd)

In class: Continued review of team project specifications.

Assignment: Your assignment, due by class on Monday, is to review at least one web site on "Test Driven Development" and then comment on (1) your opinion about whether it is a good process to use, (2) when it would be good to use and when it would be bad to use, (3) how it compares with Agile Development, and (4) what is an example of software that supports it. Write up your answers and email it to me by the start of class on Monday. Some suggested links:

• Introduction to Test Driven Design (TDD)
• Test-driven development (Wikipedia)
• The Three Rules of TDD
• The various meanings of TDD

In class: Explore online resources for test-driven development and test plans. Also, completed evaluations of each team's first draft software specification will be returned.

Assignment: For next class, due Wednesday April 9, 2008 via email, write up and send to me a one page test plan for one of the other team's products.

In class: We will discuss the topics of project management, the use of UML as a design approach, and explore project management (OpenWorkbench) and UML design software (ArgoUML)

Assignment: Final version of the software specification is due Monday, April 28, 2008 anytime before class, posted to your team's project web site. The official assignment requirements will be posted soon.

In class: Guest lecturer and Villanova grad, Kevin Garrity, who works for a small software company will join us to discuss his experiences. CSC 4700 students will be expected to ask questions.

In class: Download and install source control software (jCVS). We will then access and modify source code in a massive, multi-user, free-for-all, and then try to figure out what happened. Handy CVS reference card here.

Assignment: Final version of the software specification is due Monday, April 28, 2008 anytime before class, posted to your team's project web site. Assignment handout is here.

In class: We will discuss and try out rapid code development techniques that are common in research and industry.

In class: Demo of the process of how to use Eclipse and JUnit, two very popular tools in industry and research, to develop automated unit tests of an existing application, a very common task for a software engineer.

Discussion: We will briefly discuss the final software specification and presentation assignment.

In class: We will explore the topic of configuration management and try out installer software. Oh, and Prof. Way will attempt to escape from a straitjacket.

Assignment: Continue working with your team to complete your final software specification.

On your own: Locate and try out one or more free installers.

Due today: The final version of your team's software specification and project web site is due by the start of class today, Monday, April 28, 2008.

Presentation schedule:
Team Awesome
Team JMT
Team Enigma

Presentation schedule:
Team Shoryuken
W & H Associates
UNI-IDE

THIS IS THE LAST CLASS MEETING