95542 CSC 175N - 0 - Software Engineering 95543 CSC 177N - 0 - Senior Project Fall 2002 CSC 175N Tuesday, 12:30 pm - 3:10 pm , Brookhaven Campus A204 CSC 177N Tuesday, 11:20 am - 12:20 pm , Brookhaven Campus A204 Herbert J. Bernstein (yaya@dowling.edu) Assignments

This web page is http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC175/CSC175_Assignments.html
Copyright © 2002 Herbert J. Bernstein and other parties. All rights reserved.

Projects

The best way to develop an understanding of modern software engineering is by applying the tools of software engineering to a significant software project. The class will form into a small number of groups (perhaps only 1). Each group will work as a team to implement a significant software system. Each group will be given the opportunity to identify a suitable project. Students are urged to interview Dowling students, faculty and administrators to find software projects that need to be done. Examples would be new and useful record-keeping databases for departments or divisions, middle-ware query systems which would extract new and useful reports from existing systems, a new and useful scientific API, etc.

Students will be given two weeks to voluntarily form groups and select projects. At the fifth meeting of the course, the class as a whole, under the guidance of the instructor, will evaluate all proposed projects and all proposed groups, and attempt to make a consensus determination of project assignments. If this process fails to achieve resolution within one class meeting, each student will be required to write a detailed report with copies for all members of the class as well as for the instructor. The report will analyze the outstanding problems and recommend a course of action, and will be presented at the sixth meeting of the class. If that does not result in resolution of outstanding problems, the instructor will intervene as "chief decision maker" and make the necessary assignments. No further changes in project or in group assignments will be permitted during the semester.

Note: With the consolidation of the class meetings to one day per week, starting 17 Sep 02, the project selection will occur during the 4th meeting of the class on 17 Sep 02, with problem resolution during the 5th meeting of the class on 24 Sep 02.

Assignments

Return to this page often to find new assignments and clarifications to old assignments.

• Assignment #1, assigned Thursday, 5 Sep 2002, due 12 and 17 Sep 2002
  • Acquire your text books and a lab notebook with carbons. Read pages 1-50 of Brooks. Read pages 1-70 of Sommerville. Do all exercises. Be prepared to discuss readings and exercises.
  • Start investigation of possible projects, keeping careful notes in your lab notebook. Put your name, email address and date on every page. Be ready to turn in the carbons on 17 Sep.
  • Prepare a short bio and skills inventory of yourself to share with the class. Classify yourself as: leader, follower, or lone wolf. Classify yourself as: Very organized, somewhat organized, or not very organized. Classify yourself as: Highly skilled with technology, somewhat skilled with technology, or not very skilled with technology. Bring enough copies for everybody to the meeting on 12 Sep.

• Assignment #2, assigned 17 Sep 2002, due 24 Sep 2002
  • Read pages 51-83 of Brooks. Read pages 71-120 of Sommerville. Do all the exercises. Be prepared to discuss readings and exercises.
  • Put a preliminary design for the agreed project into your notebook. Be prepared to discuss why this design is feasible. If the class project is not yet agreed, put a preliminary design for the project you favor into your notebook instead.

• Assignment #3, assigned 24 Sep 2002, due 1 Oct 2002
  • Read pages 88-112 of Brooks. Read pages 121-191 of Sommerville. Do all the exercises. Be prepared to discuss readings and exercises.
  • There should now be an agreed preliminary feasible design for the class project. Bring it back to the people you have talked to about the project before and discuss it with them. Record your discussions in your notebook. Prepare a more detailed, updated system design, based on your discussions. Prepare your best suggestions on project schedule and task assignments. Be prepared to discuss.

• Assignment #4, assigned 1 Oct 2002, due 8 Oct 2002
  • Read pages 115-150 of Brooks. Read pages 192-238 of Sommerville. Do all the exercises. Be prepared to discuss readings and exercises.
  • Be prepared to report on your project progress.

• Assignment #5, assigned 8 Oct 2002, due 15 Oct 2002
  • Read pages 153-160 of Brooks. Read pages 239-259 of Sommerville. Do all the exercises. Be prepared to discuss readings and exercises.
  • Be prepared to report on your project progress.
  • In collaboration with your classmates, start on a combined project web page on arcib.dowling.edu in the user account CSC175F02 Prepare a draft outline of the user manual and for the system manager's manual for the system you all are creating, and post them to the project web page as well as your own web pages, with assigments as to who will be writing which sections, and firm deadlines for that work. Post other project-related materials to the project web page and invite your users to review and comment on it.

• Assignment #6, assigned 15 Oct 2002, due 22 Oct 2002
  • Read pages 163-175 of Brooks. Read pages 260-283 of Sommerville. Do all the exercises. Be prepared to discuss readings and exercises.
  • Be prepared to report on your project progress.
  • In collaboration with your classmates, do an object-oriented design (OOD) for your project and update the combined project web page on arcib.dowling.edu in the user account CSC175F02. Try to make use of UML in preparing the the OOD, but don't let problems with your tools prevent you from getting the OOD posted. Add a full project timeline to the project web page, with all milestones, including those that have been met. Update the draft outline of the user manual and for the system manager's manual for the system you all are creating. Be sure not to remove the old information from the outlines, but indicate both the old and the new and how they differ. For all milestones, as the class meets them, be sure to show both the original planned date and the actual date on which it is met. Post all the new material to the project web page (as well as your own web pages if appropriate). Post other project-related materials to the project web page and once again invite your users to review and comment on it.

• Assignment #7, assigned 22 Oct 2002, due 29 Oct 2002
  • Be prepared for an open book, open notes midterm examination on 29 October. This is 20% of your grade. All materials in the readings and exercises to date in both textbooks, all material discussed in class, and certain information relating to your project are fair game. This examination is a major component of the work for this course. See the syllabus on Grading Policy. Students who miss or fail this examination will be given a formal midterm warning and will be encouraged to withdraw from the course.
  • Part of the midterm examination will be formal individual reports of project plans and progress. Each report is to be presented orally and backed by written report which is to be posted to the indiviual web page prior to the presentation.
  • We note that, despite repeated requests, an agreed project timeline has not been posted. A complete project timeline extending back to the beginning of the course and forward to the end of the course, with task assignments for all participants, milestones, deliverables and lag/lead information for the portions of the project prior to the reporting date is to be completed and posted to the project website no later than 5 pm, Sunday, 27 October 2002. It is not sufficient to have a timeline for yourself, but it will at least be better than nothing, and may be sufficent to avert a formal midterm warning. Failure to have an agreed project timeline combined with failure to have an individual timeline guarantees a formal midterm warning.
  • The class project website and all individual participant web sites and all submitted carbons as well as the daily quizzes will be evaluated as part of the midterm grading. Failure to have completed all individual efforts or failure to have properly participated in collaborative efforts by 29 October 2002 will result in a formal midterm warning and a recommendation that the student(s) involved withdraw from the course. Missing carbons will not be accepted after 11:25 am, 29 October 2002. Missing web sites will not be counted towards the midterm evaluation after 11:25 am, 29 October 2002.
  • Despite the heavy demands imposed by the midterm requirements above, the timeline must also show significant progress on the project itself during the week of 22-28 October 2002.

• Assignment #8, assigned 22 Oct 2002, due 5 November 2002
  • Read pages 177-203 of Brooks. Read pages 285-305 of Sommerville. Do all the exercises. Be prepared to discuss readings and exercises.
  • Be prepared to report on the complete class structure for the project, and to report subproject statuses.

• Assignment #9, assigned 5 Nov 2002, due 12 November 2002
  • Read pages 207-227 of Brooks. Read pages 306-349 of Sommerville. Do all the exercises. Be prepared to discuss readings and exercises.
  • Be prepared to report on the complete class structure for the project, and to report subproject statuses.

• Assignment #10, assigned 12 Nov 2002, due 19 November 2002
  • Read pages 229-289 of Brooks. (Yes, that is a lot of reading, but much of it is review and material you should now be very familiar with). Read pages 353-370 of Sommerville. Do all the exercises. Be prepared to discuss readings and exercises. In particular, be prepared to discuss hazards and risks for the advisement project.
  • Be prepared to report on the project as a whole, and to report subproject statuses.

• Assignment #11, assigned 19 November 2002, due 26 November 2002
  • You have now finished Brooks. Write a short 2 page essay summarizing the most important lesson you draw from reading this book. Be sure to cite specific material from the book with which you agree or disagree.
  • Read pages 489-534 of Sommerville. Use what you read there and your own experience with the course project and with other projects to prepare a realistic time and cost estimate for what it would take to create a complete advisement module, starting from the base of what has been done this semester, or, if you choose, starting from scratch. Do your estimate three different ways:
    • Assuming you were going to do the project on your own.
    • Assuming you were going to do the project with the same team you are now working with.
    • Assuming you were going to do the project with a hand-picked student team chosen by you. You must name the team members you would choose and give a brief justification for your choices. The size of this team is up to you.
    In doing your costing, assume that students cost $7.25 per hour. Assume that institutional administrative overhead is 50% and covers all institutional costs other than staff.
  • Be prepared to report on the project as a whole, and to report subproject statuses.

• Assignment #12, assigned 26 November 2002, due 3 December 2002
  • Read pages 582-621 of Sommerville. Someday your system will be a legacy system. Write a short essay explaining what you can do to make is easier for future programmers to work with your system.
  • Each student should prepare a list of 3 questions about software engineering that you feel need to be reviewed before you take the final exam.

Note: Subject to confirmation because of our unofficial time change, the finals for this course are scheduled in A204 on the Brookhaven Campus on Tuesday (10 Dec 02) 12:30 - 2:50 and Thursday (12 Dec 02) 2:10 - 4:30 of finals week. We will use the first of these periods for the written final exam for CSC175. The second period will be used for a final joint project report. You must each speak, but the division of labor as to who speaks about what aspects of the project is up to all of you jointly. The presentation should be a smooth, well-organized team effort, and should take no less than sixty minutes and no more than ninety minutes total, divided among all of you in speaking in whatever order you all jointly choose. Even if you choose to do the presentation as powerpoint, an html version of the presentation should be added to the course web page. There will be a question and project evaluation session after the presentation.

All source code and documentation of the project as being reported in the presentation should also be added to the course web page. All major links from the course web page to student web pages whould be brought forward to copies directly on arcib, so we can be certain this web page will survive as an independent entity in the future.