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SEOC2: Software Engineering with Objects and Components 2

Syllabus

Last updated: 2005/02/28 21:27:04

Course web page

http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/seoc2/

Lecturer

James A. Bednar, jbednar@inf.ed.ac.uk, room D9, 5 Forrest Hill, phone 651-3092
http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/jbednar

Pre-requisites

There are no formal pre-requisites for this course, although Software Engineering with Objects and Components 1 is a worthwhile companion course. Students will be assumed to have been exposed to basic Software Engineering concepts in previous courses, such as CS2.

Short Description

The aim of this course is to introduce you to key concepts in the design and implementation of large-scale, long-term software systems. As the course title suggests, the concepts are strongly influenced by object-oriented design. However, many of the ideas which we discuss are useful for all programming paradigms.

Aims and Objectives

Having completed the course, you should:

• Understand the basic issues faced by a team developing a large-scale software system.
• Understand how software development projects are planned and scheduled, and why such planning is difficult for large systems.
• Be aware of high-level architectures typical of large-scale systems.
• Be familiar with typical processes used for large-scale, long-term software development.
• Be aware of common threats to large projects and how to address them.

Assessment

70% of the final mark is from an exam. 30% is from practical exercises, reports, and presentations. In place of some of the exercises, Master's-level students undertake a literature survey of an area relevant to the course topics.

Syllabus

The course covers the following topics (not in chronological order):

• Controlling software design
  • Design patterns
  • Architectural patterns
  • Refactoring
  • The Unified Software Development Process
  • Extreme programming
  • Open source design

• Planning a software project
  • Estimating size
  • Configuration management and defect tracking
  • Verification, validation and testing
  • Project risk reduction patterns

• Quality management
  • Software standards
  • Cost versus benefit
  • Design and code reviews
  • Product and process focus

• Tricky issues
  • Requirements engineering
  • Leadership and teamwork
  • Resilient (not brittle) engineering

Readings

There is no required textbook, but it would be helpful to have a copy of Sommerville 2004, Software Engineering, Addison Wesley, ISBN 032121026X (or earlier editions) for reference. You will be provided with copies of excerpts from relevant papers and books, and/or links to online material. Other useful books and materials will be listed on the course web page.