Software Design

CS373S Software Design
	Announcements	Professor	Don Batory	batory@cs.utexas.edu
Lectures			office	GDC 5.826 contact by email
		TA
			office hrs	contact by email
		Room
		Days and Time
		Unique #
		Ground Rules	UTCS Rules to Live By
		Your Grades	Canvas
		Final

Prerequisites, Overview, and Goals

Prerequisites:Computer Science 429 (or 310) or 429H (or 310H) with a grade of at least C-. The more programming experience you have, the more you will get out of this course.

Overview. Just as carpentry, plumbing, and bricklaying is NOT architecture, programming and data structures is NOT design. Software Design is a collection of fundamental ideas that system architects use to create easy-to-change, easy-to-maintain applications. We see these ideas at work in Model Driven Engineering (MDE), which gives us a general way to think about software design and construction -- not as a mass of spaghetti code, but as a principled instantiation of concepts arranged in a thoughtful way. MDE deals with the creation of models and transformations of these models to other models, eventually yielding source and executables (yet other models).

This is rather abstract, but if you think about it, we express a program in the Java language (that's our concrete model of this program). The javac compiler transforms source code to bytecode (it maps a Java representation of a program to a corresponding representation of that program in bytecode). javadoc, as another example, maps Java source to html (both are models). Object oriented refactorings map source code to refactored source code. There are even refactorings that map bytecodes to bytecodes.

These are just a few examples of program representations and the tools that transform them from one representation to another. Virtually all of software design deals with the creation of models (program representations) and their conversion into other representations. Most work in Engineering (with a capital "E") deals with model development -- ex. Boeing creates and analyzes models of aircraft long before they actually build a physical plane. Similarly, the software for next generation Space Shuttle is being built solely from models; no one is writing code! (These models are transformed to ugly C++ by commercial tools and then commercial C++ compilers transform source into executables).

Goals. The goals of this course are to prove students the basics for what system architects do, and how to reason about application design and construction; there is programming but this is NOT just a programming course. This course will:

teach you basic skills in reasoning about and expressing software designs,
give you experience in writing programs to exercise these skills,
expose you to the fundamentals behind software design,
provide an insight on where software design technology is headed, and
give you a framework to understand what Software Design will become in the future.

The course includes lectures on the following topics: UML models and metamodels, metamodel constraints, categories, refactorings, object oriented design patterns, architectural patterns, parallel architectures, and service oriented architectures (SOA). And of course, concepts from MDE which all of the above are special cases. The course covers examples from compiler design and database management system design , so if you have any experience writing compilers or databases, you're that much further ahead than others. A course on compilers or databases or software engineering is not a prerequisite, but it would be good to have before you complete your undergraduate education.

As this is gateway course to further undergraduate courses in CS on Software Development, there will be many small programming assignments and written homework assignments.

Course Materials

The PPTX file and its PDF for each lecture will be posted after class. (I change the notes every time I teach the course). Links to these files are given in the syllabus below.

Finally, there is a text for this course. It is a 130MB download. It is free via this link, but is password protected. I will provide you with the password in class.

Automated Software Design Volume 1
(comments)

Do not use CS printers to print this text or any chapter. Take the PDF(s) to a copy center and get them printed there. If caught printing this text on CS printers, horrible things will happen to you -- you'll have to deal with the CS System Staff who eat nails for breakfast -- I will NOT help you or bail you out! You have been warned!!!

I have created several instructional web pages with accompanying .AVI or .MOV videos. Note: The .AVI videos work only in a Windows-based environment. The .MOV were converted from .AVI files and (unfortunately) are not as sharp.

Software

All programming assignments (except one) are in Java. We will be using the following software, all of which is free to UTCS students, and all of which has been installed in the UTCS Microlab. The following is for Windows Platforms. If you use Apple machines, well, I will try to help as much as I can, but no promises!

NetBeans 8.2 IDE (Java SE version) -- Do NOT install Apache NetBeans 9.0 or 10.0. There is something screwed up with them!
I prefer NetBeans over Eclipse for program development as NetBeans is a simpler environment. We will use different instances of Eclipse to run special tools and these will be stated clearly in programming assignments. On Linux, Netbeans AND Eclipse are on the default path, just type "> netbeans" or "> eclipse" and/or Eclipse (for Java Developers) -- I prefer NetBeans to Eclipse for program development as it is a simpler environment.
VLC Media Player -- to view .MOV videos shown in class. (You can use Windows Media Player, but its video resolution is awful). No need for this software if you are a Mac user.
MDELite -- a set of Java packages that encode a Java-based way to teach MDE concepts and programming. This package changes with time, so download it only when you need it and get the freshest edition.

CS Accounts

If you need an account, follow this link to create a CS account and to find the names of public machines to which you can log in.

Quizzes

There may be unannounced in-class quizzes on course lecture material, readings from the course texts, and/or homework. Missed quizzes will be given a grade of zero unless there are extenuating circumstances.

Homework, Programming Assignments, and Submissions

Submissions are via Canvas. A PDF file must be submitted on all assignments.

Issues with Netbeans and Eclipse. Programming assignments will require the writing of clear documentation and Unit tests. There are some problems/issues in writing javadoc documentation and running regression tests with JUnit, which are described below:

You should read these postings carefully, and don't forget reading how to set a classpath.

Examinations

There are two midterms and a final. These exams must be taken on the specified date and at the specified time. If you miss an exam due to extenuating circumstances, a grade will be negotiated for the exam based on a percentage of your homework, quizzes, and other exam scores. Otherwise missed exams will be given a grade of zero.

Class Grades

Final grades will be determined approximately by the following scheme:

Your accumulative programming assignment grade will determine the maximum final grade for the course. Ex: if you get a "B" average across all of your projects, your final grade will be no greater than a "B", approximately.
Final counts 40%, each midterm 30%, approximately.

Homework grades and class participation will be used to decide final grades in grade-borderline cases.

Extenuating Circumstances

If you have difficulty meeting the requirements of this course, fail to hand in an assignment, or miss an exam because of an unforeseen situation, please advise the instructor in writing at the earliest possible date so that your situation can be discussed. If you encounter an unexpected medical or family emergency or a random act of Nature that causes you to miss the due date for homework or miss a quiz or exam, you must present suitable documentation in writing to the instructor before special consideration will be given. A file of all written correspondence will be kept by the instructor and decisions regarding them will be made at the end of the semester.

Schedule

Numbers in [brackets] indicates the estimated number of lectures per topic. The number indicated is a lower-bound, as there will be class room discussions to work on problems and review of homework assignments. PPTX and PDF copies of the lectures are hyperlinked below. Given this, the exact dates of a lecture are unknown. The order in which topics are presented is below.

Topic [# of lectures + days of discussion]	Written Assignments	Programming Assigments
1. Introduction [1] design vs programming, model driven engineering, models, transformations, automated software development Reading Assignment Ch 1
2. Unified Modeling Language [5] class diagrams, cardinalities, associations object diagrams, constraints, meta-models and meta-modeling, writing constraints in Java Streams, in class examples principles of Model Driven Engineering (MDE) Reading Assignment Ch 2 + Ch 3 Sec 1
3. Refactorings [5] model refactorings OO program refactorings: rename, extract method, substitute, move member, factory method, pull-up, push-down, singleton, extract class (normalization, partition), extract superclass, extract interface Reading Assignment Ch 3
Midterm #1
4. Design Patterns [8] refactoring scripts basic patterns: facade, adapter, flyweight delegates: visitors, command, memento grammars: composite, decorator, intepreter frameworks: template method, factory, abstract factory separation of concerns: observer,mediator, model-view-controller in-class examples Reading Assignment Ch 4 Sec 1-5
Midterm #2
5. Architectural Patterns [2] layers, multi-tiered and 3-tiered architectures, object-oriented virtual machines, symmetric vs. asymmetric layers dataflow architectures, components and connectors, Java pipes Reading Assignment Ch 4 Sec 6
6. Parallel Architectures [2] derivation of dataflow applications, refinements, optimizations, map reduce, substitution principles, architectural optimization, architecture refinement and correctness, parallel architectures, parallel hash join architectures design of byzantine fault tolerant servers, data flow program extensions Reading Assignment Ch 6
7. Service Oriented Architectures [2] (if time permits) historical development (CORBA, COM) and evolution to present-day concepts JAX web servers Batches (Guest Lecture)
8. Course Recap [1]
Final

CS373S Software Design