Fall 2013: EE 461L Software Engineering and Design Laboratory

Instructor: Professor Miryung Kim

Lecture (#16940, #16945, #16950, #16955). TTH 11AM to 12:30PM in BUR 108
Labs: Mon 9 to 12 PM, Mon 12 to 3PM, Tue 6:30-9:30 PM, or Wed 6:30-9:30PM in ENS 307
Office Hours: T 9:30 AM-11:00 AM in ACES 5.118. Please utilize office hours to ask questions and discuss class materials.
Phone: 512-232-1501
Email: myfirstname at ece utexas edu
Teaching Assistant: Wei Lun Hung and Tianyi Zhang

Course Description

We focus on providing hands-on experience in designing and developing large-scale software systems with emphasis on the use of automated analysis tools. You will generate concrete software engineering artifacts at all stages of the software life-cycle. You will learn systematic engineering methods for large-scale software development: design and modeling methods; collaborative development environment; object-oriented design and analysis; design patterns and refactoring; build & integration; unit testing & regression testing; bug finding; software inspection and verification.

Three lecture hours and three laboratory hours a week for one semester.

Pre-requisite: EE 422C (or EE 322C) or CS 336 with a grade of at least C-; credit with a grade of at least C- for Math 325K.

Course Topics

My goal is to teach systematic software development methods and tools in the context of developing a software system in collaboration with other students. Practical development tools include

Analysis tools (e.g., debuggers, automated bug-finders, JUnit)
Construction tools (e.g., compilation managers and build scripts)
Tool support for collaboration (e.g., version control systems, SVN, GIT)
Design tools (e.g. UML-based modeling tool)
GNU/Linux operating system environment, command-line utilities, bash shell scripting

Systematic design, construction, verification, and evolution methods include

Object-oriented design patterns
Refactoring
Unit testing, test coverage and test generation
Hoare logic, preconditions, post-conditions, and loop invariants
If time permits, basic static and dynamic program analysis, etc.

In the beginning of the class, I will ask you to fill out a background survey on what you are hoping to learn from this class. In the subsequent lecture, I will discuss how your expectations are aligned with and/or different from what to be covered and emphasized in the class.

Intended Benefits for Students

(1) You will gain knowledge in objective-oriented design, analysis, and testing techniques.
(2) You will gain hands-on experience in collaborative software development and also become familiar with practical tools that enable you to construct and evolve a large-scale software system; my hope is that this course will make you attractive to the software engineering industry.
(3) You will acquire a theoretical foundation for systematic engineering and analysis methods.
(4) You will learn from industry guest speakers about how systematic engineering and design methods benefit your career.

Textbooks

All course materials are available in the form of on-line lecture notes.
The Design Patterns textbook is required for the lectures on Software Design only. This book is a reference book for widely used, object-oriented design patterns. In 461L, I cover the most important 10 patterns. While I think it is a good idea to read about other design patterns, only the patterns covered in this class will be in the scope of exams, quizzes, and assignments.
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

Useful References:
Head First Design Patterns
Essential Open Source Toolset (ISBN-10: 0470844450, ISBN-13: 978-0470844458)
Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction (ISBN-10: 0735619670, ISBN-13: 978-0735619678 )
Linux Pocket Guide (ISBN-10: 0596006284, ISBN-13: 978-0596006280)
UML 2.0 Pocket Reference (ISBN-10: 0596102089, ISBN-13: 978-0596102081)

Course Organization

As a four credit course, the class time will be organized three hours of lecture per week, used to introduce the software engineering methods and theories. An additional three hours of laboratory time per week will be used for course projects and to learn about tools central to the course. Quizzes will be done in lectures.

	Lectures (T/TH)	Tool Tutorials and Projects	Assignments, Readings, and Quizzes
Week 1 (8/29)	Lecture 1. Overview	Form Project Groups
Week 2 (9/3, 9/5)	Lecture 2. UML Diagrams Part 1. Requirements Analysis, Use Case and Statecharts Preview: Project Part A Expectation Lecture 2. UML Diagrams Part 2. Object Oriented Design, Class Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams	Form Project Groups Tutorial 1a: Google App Engine Tutorial 1b: Objectify
Week 3 (9/10, 9/12)	Lecture 3. Collaborative Software Development Svn, GIT, Diff (Supplementary slides on GIT)	Tutorial 2: UML Work on Project Part A
Week 4 (9/17, 9/20)	Lecture 4. Unix Part 1. Unix Commands Lecture 4. Unix Part 2. Shell Scripting New! Shell Script Files Demonstrated in Class Preview: Project Part B Expectation	Tutorial 3: Subversion Version Control System Work on Project Part A	Quiz 1. Version Merging, Unix Commands, and UML (Thursday)
Week 5 (9/24, 9/26)	Project Part A Presentations Project Part A. New Feature Proposal. Motivation and User Benefits, Feature Description and Requirements, Identification of Relevant Classes, Mock-Up Screenshots. Use Case Diagram in UML Preliminary Class Diagram in UML (See Part A Feedback Sheet)	Tutorial 4: Unix Environment and Command-line Utilities and Shell Scripting Work on Project Part B	Links to Project Part A Presentation Videos: Team 1, Team 2, Team 3, Team 4, Team 5, Team 6, Team 7, Team 8, Team 9, Team 10, Team 11, Team 12, Team 13.
Week 6 (10/1, 10/3)	Lecture 5. Information Hiding Principle KWIC modularization 1 vs 2 source code Lecture 6. Design Patterns Part 1. Abstract Factory, Factory Method (Please read relevant chapters of the textbook before each class.) Java Code examples of Head First Design Patterns	Work on Project Part B	Reading Assignment 1. Paper Review Report Due in class on Tuesday. On the criteria to be used in decomposing systems into modules, DL Parnas
Week 7 (10/8, 10/10)	Lecture 6. Design Patterns Part 2. Singleton, Adapter, Flyweight, Bridge Lecture 6. Design Patterns Part 3. Observer, Mediator, Strategy, Visitor (Please read relevant chapters of the textbook before each class.) Handout on design patterns. New! Annotated Lecture Notes: FactoryMethod, Singleton, Adapter, Bridge, Flyweight, Strategy, Mediator, Observer,	Tutorial 4: Improving Design Work on Project Part B Supplementary Notes on Design Patterns made by Tianyi	Quiz 2. Unix, Shell Scripting, Information Hiding, Design Patterns (Thursday)
Week 8 (10/15, 10/17)	Project Part B Presentations, Guest Speaker Project Part B. New Feature Implementation Progress Design in terms of UML Description of Important APIs User Interfaces: Current Snapshots Test Scenarios Guest Speaker: Chris Simoes, VP of Engineering at Lithium Technologies (See Part B Feedback Sheet)	Tutorial 5: Design Pattern Work on Project Part C	Guest Speaker Video: Chris Simoes, VP of Engineering@ Lithium Technologies. Slides: Software Development after College Project Presentations: City Cyclist, ECE Hub, RubixCube, Who Has It All. ATSnax, Basedrive, CodeWithFriends, WomboCombo, MyFrontPage, PineCone, PuzzleMe, TapHead, WalletSaver.
Week 9 (10/22, 10/24)	Lecture 6. Design Patterns Part 4. Design Patterns Handout: Summary Lecture 7. Refactoring + Midpoint Course Survey Refactoring Book Chapter: Replace Conditionals with Polymorphism Midterm (Thursday)	Tutorial 6: Refactoring Work on Project Part C	Homework 1. Analysis of Design Patterns and Shell Script Programming (Submit your report and code to the blackboard before Tuesday 11AM.) Midterm Scope: All materials up to and including Design Patterns.
Week 10 (10/29, 10/31)	Lecture 8. Build Management and Documentation ANT, JAVADOC Refactoring Recap Exercise: (1) Refactoring Code Demonstrated in the Class (2) Visitor Code Implemented in the Class ANT Build File and Project Demonstrated in the Class Lecture 9. Testing Part 1. Statement, Branch, and Path Coverage, JUNIT Testing Part 1 Handout JUnit and Test Code Demonstrated in the Class Preview: Project Part C Expectation	Tutorial 7a: Build Management Work on Project Part C
Week 11 (11/5, 11/7)	Lecture 9. Testing Part 2. Coverage, Bounded Iteration, and Infeasible Paths, Test Generation, Symbolic Execution Testing Part 2 Handout and Lecture Notes Guest Lecture: FaultTracer Regression Test Selection and Fault Localization (PhD Candidate, Lingming Zhang) FaultTracer Website	Tutorial 8: JUnit Testing and Selenium Work on Project Part C	Quiz 3. Design Patterns, Refactoring, Testing, Build Management (Thursday)
Week 12 (11/12, 11/14)	Lecture 10. Effective Java Programming Part 1 Creating and Destroying Objects Part 2 Methods Common to All Objects Part 3 Classes and Interfaces Lecture 10. Effective Java Programming Part 4 Exceptions (Optional) Part 5 Generics Effective Java Code Examples Demonstrated in Class	Tutorial 9a: Eclipse Debugger Tutorial 9b: Bug Finding & FindBug
Week 13 (11/19, 11/21)	Project Part C Presentations and Demo Project C. Final Demonstration Motivation and User Benefits, Feature Description and Requirements User Manual, User Interfaces, Screen Snapshots Design in UML and Description of Important APIs Test Scenarios and Test cases in JUnit (Peer Evaluation Sheet)(See Part C Feedback Sheet) Guest Speaker: Dr. Colin Dixon at IBM Research (Thursday 22nd)		Project Presentations: ATSnax Basedrive Code With Friends WomboCombo MyFrontPage PuzzleMe Wallet Saver
Week 14 (11/26, 11/28)	Lecture 11. Inspection and Verification Part 1. Code Reviews and Hoare Logic Code Inspection Hoare Logic Handout Course Instructor Survey No Lecture on Thanksgiving	No lab. Enjoy Thanksgiving!	Reading Assignment 2. Paper Review Report Due in class on Tuesday Yesterday, my program worked. Today, it does not. Why?
Week 15 (12/3, 12/5)	Practice exams are posted here: (1) Final Exam--Fall 2012 (2) Final Exam--Spring 2012 (3) Practice Final--Spring 2012 Lecture 11. Inspection and Verification Part 2. Weakest Preconditions Lecture 11. Inspection and Verification Part 3. Loop Invariant WP-HandwrittenNote1.pdf WP-HandwrittenNote2.pdf WP-HandwrittenNote3.pdf Optional If Time Permits: Lecture 12. Debugging Eclipse Debugger and GDB commands, Delta Debugging	Verification Exercise: Hoare Logic	Homework 2. Testing, Debugging and Inspection, Due on Monday 12/9 11:59 PM

Grading

40% Projects and Weekly Labs

a new feature proposal and presentation 7%
a midpoint implementation and testing progress report and presentation 8%
a final demonstration and presentation 12%
a peer evaluation for the final project 4%
tool tutorials 9%

25% Homework (5% each), Reading Assignment (3% each), and Quizzes (3% each)
10% Midterm
25% Final exam (Wednesday, December 11, 9:00-12:00 noon-- This final exam schedule is set by University.)

Grading Scheme

homework, project report, and presentation grading scheme

5 pt: Excellent design, complete implementation, selection of a task that is highly intellectually challenging, creative, concise yet comprehensive writing, nearly perfect answers, beautifully written and verbally communicated, eloquent presentation within a time limit
4 pt: Very good, mostly correct answers, i.e., >85%, selection of a intellectually challenging project topic, well written, good verbal presentation, well practiced presentation within a time limit
3 pt: Good understanding of the key concepts, mostly correct answers, i.e., >70%, selection of a intellectually challenging project topic, well written, good verbal presentation, well practiced presentation within a time limit
2 pt or 1pt: Poor, shallow, minimally sufficient, or needlessly wordy, key concepts misunderstood or missing, selection of easy project tasks, poor written and verbal communication, presentation over time, not following specified formats

Here is a guideline on how to read research papers and write paper reviews by Bill Griswold.

Tool tutorial grading scheme

2 pt: Well done, demonstrating understanding of the key concepts of the tool, and completion of the specified tasks
0 pt: Incomplete, never submitted at all, shallow, minimally-sufficient.
Note: each week's tool tutorial will have a different weight depending on its difficulty level.

Your letter grade assignment is not based on an absolute score. For example, getting a total score of 70 could still provide B in this class. The final grade distribution of this class will be similar to other ECE classes that students take in the similar stage, for example, EE 445L or EE360C.

Homework, Quizzes, and Exams

Quizzes and exams are to test the theories, methods, and tools covered in both class and labs. All homework must be done individually. Collaboration is not permitted.

Laboratory Projects

You will work in teams of four to five students. You should demonstrate that the proposed feature is new and a unique creation. If you implement a feature that already exists or is very similar to an existing feature in any past or later version, it will be considered as plagiarism. When proposing a project, you should investigate whether it is feasible to implement and test it. You are expected to perform a live demonstration of your project in class.

Class Policy

There's one exemption for missing one tool tutorial. In other words, I will use the best N-1 scores out of N for final grade calculation.
All deliverables are due at the beginning of the class. There is no late policy for projects. Homework and reading assignments may be submitted within up to 24 hours after the due date with 40% penalty. No credit for late submissions, with the exception of extremely exceptional circumstances but only if you contact me before the penalty is incurred.
You can use your laptops to take notes (no smart phones please). If you plan to use your laptop during the lectures, please send me an email in the beginning of the semester.
I will do my best to return graded quizzes and assignments within one week to provide timely feedback to you.
Class announcements will be made through Piazza. Not every class announcement will be made available via electronic means.
Please use Assembla for version control and project management. Please provide a read permission to us, so that we can access and grade your project.
Quizzes start in the beginning of the class.
I will be handing out review questions at the end of lectures. This is to help you review concepts and prepare for the quizzes and exams. If you do not know answers to the questions, I'd be happy to go through them with you during my office hours.

Feedback Statement

During this course, I will be asking you to give me feedback on your learning in both informal and formal ways, e.g., including anonymous midpoint survey about how my teaching strategies are helping or hindering your learning. It is very important for me to know your reaction to what we are doing in the class, so I encourage you to respond to these surveys, ensuring that we can create an environment effective for teaching and learning. Occasionally, at the end of the lecture, I will hand out index cards to ask "what is the most important thing you have learned in this class session?" and "what questions do you still have?" This feedback will be anonymous and this is to check your understanding and promote Q&A.

Software Environment

If you can, please use your personal laptop during the labs. We recommend that you install all necessary software systems and environments in the beginning of the class to ensure timely progress of weekly tool tutorials, assignments, and projects.

Unix or Linux installation for BASH shell scripting and running Unix commands, or MacOS with X11 or Terminal, or Cygwin installation for Windows OS; Subversion Client installation or Subclipse Eclipse plug-in; Account creation in Assembla and Piazza; Eclipse Classic 3.7.1 or later versions of Eclipse for Plug-In development; ArgoUML or other UML diagram software systems; JUnit; Ant; Eclipse debugger; gdb; FindBug and Java 6 or later versions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why aren't there many programming assignments? I want to improve my programming skill through this class.
My goal is to help you experience a software project life cycle by creating concrete artifacts in each stage. Thus, while software implementation is an important part of the life cycle, coding is not the main focus of this class. If you are excited about coding and want to practice more, please select a project with a significant implementation component or volunteer to play a key role in implementing your team project. I can also share pointers to open source projects, books, and references that could help you to practice your programming skills further.

Q: Why are we emphasizing theories (such as discrete math, logic, proof by induction, and program analysis) in a project-based software laboratory course?
I hope that you can not only get a good job as an entry level software engineer, but succeed in the future as a lead, principal engineer and architect. This requires you to have not only a solid coding skill but a theoretical foundation for systematic design, analysis, testing, and verification methods. In my opinion, these foundations cannot be easily attained while you are on the jobs; they are best taught at University.

Q: How is this different from EE 360F (Introduction to Software Engineering)?
EE360F is an introduction to software engineering with focus on life cycle and process. In this course, we extend these concepts to learn about practical design techniques and to gain hands-on experience in applying tools and techniques. We also emphasize theoretical foundations for systematic testing, debugging, and verification methods.

Q: Why do we need to teach development tools in universities? Don't we already learn these tools through an internship?
You may have encountered some of software development tools already through your internships; however, my goal is to help you to understand how these tools work and what their strengths and limitations are, so that you can use them more effectively.

Q: Don't we already have a senior capstone course EE464?
EE464 is a capstone course designed for all students in electrical engineering and computer engineering. Thus, EE464 does not provide an opportunity to introduce software developments tools systematically. In fact, the introduction of this advanced software engineering laboratory will better prepare you for serious software engineering 464 projects.

Documented Disability Statement

Students with disabilities may request appropriate academic accommodations from the division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities at 471-6259 (voice) or 232-2937 (video phone) or http://www.utexas.edu/diversity/ddce/ssd

Religious Holiday

By UT Austin policy, you must notify me of your pending absence at least fourteen days (14) prior to the date of observance of a religious holy day. If you must miss a class, an examination, a work assignment, or a project in order to observe a religious holy day, I will give you an opportunity to complete the missed work within a reasonable time after the absence.

Notice Regarding Academic Dishonesty

The University of Texas Honor Code: The core values of The University of Texas at Austin are learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity, and responsibility. Each member of the university is expected to uphold these values through integrity, honesty, trust, fairness, and respect toward peers and community.
To find out what constitutes plagiarism, please go to http://www.lib.utexas.edu/services/instruction/learningmodules/plagiarism