COMP 303 Software Development - Fall 2010

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Basic Information

Description

Principles, mechanisms, techniques, and tools for software development. The course involves a significant project.

Sample Course Topics

Principles: Separation of concerns, encapsulation, substitutablity, interface segregation.
Mechanism: Exception-handling, serialization support, concurrency and synchronization, reflection.
Techniques: Design patterns, design by contract, unit testing, refactoring.
Tools: Integrated software development environment, automatic testing tools, coverage analyzers, static checkers.

Learning Outcomes

The learning outcomes for this course are organized along the four main conceptual axes of the course: principles, mechanisms, techniques, and tools. The following table lists the expected learning outcomes for the course (the table reads by row, from left to right).

After this course, you should be able to...

For a concrete look at what you should be able to do in this ourse, have a look at the best projects from 2006, 2007, and 2008, and 2009.

Reference Material

Required Textbook: Horstmann, Cay. Object-Oriented Design and Patterns, 2nd Edition. Wiley, 2005. Available at the Paragraphe Bookstore.

Complementary Textbook on Testing: Pezzè, Young. Software Testing and Analysis: Process, Principles, and Techniques. Wiley, 2008. On reserve at the library.

Evaluation

Important Notes:

1. Writing the midterm exam is optional. For students who do not write the midterm, the weight of the final will be 70%. For students who write the midterm, the respective weights of the midterm/final will be either 30%/40% or 0%/70%, whathever produces the highest final grade.
2. A mark of 50% or more for the project is required to pass the course, irrespective of the total final mark.
3. 75% of the total project grade will be allocated equally to all team members, and 25% of the grade will be adjusted based on each member's contributions, as reported in a project group report at the end of the term. However, each team member must make contributions to all milestones. Teams should report any student who does not contribute anything to a milestone. Students who do not contribute to a milestone receive the grade of 0 for the milestone.
4. Students interested in maximizing their grade are encouraged to attempt the project bonus assignments. After the final project deadline, no additional work will be considered in assigning grades.

The following material is subject to evaluation:

Anything presented in class, all material in the mandatory reading, operational knowledge of the tools covered in the course, anything completed to meet the learning objectives of the project. The midterm will cover all lectures up to and including 14 October. The final will cover everything.

In accord with McGill University's Charter of Students' Rights, students in this course have the right to submit in English or in French any written work that is to be graded.

Academic Integrity

McGill University values academic integrity. Therefore all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offenses under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (see http://www.mcgill.ca/integrity for more information).

Project

The project will involve the development of an interactive card game called Hearts. Additionally, some students will have the opportunity to work on an open-source project (contact the instructor if you are interested).

Additional links will appear here as additional instructions are released. To get an idea of what you will be developing as a project have a look at the best projects from 2009, 2008, 2007, and 2006.

Project Resources

• JHotDraw 5.3 bundle
• Project Description
• CVS Setup Instructions
• Milestone 0 Description
• Milestone 1 Description (Due 28 Sept, 11:59am).
• Milestone 2 Description (Due 26 Oct, 11:59am)
• Milestone 3 Description (Due 2 Dec 11:59am).

Schedule

This schedule is subject to change. It is strongly recommended to do the readings before class.

© Martin Robillard, 2010