Syllabus for SSE 658

Design Problems and Solutions

Spring Semester 2014 (14S)

Early version, changes are possible.

Instructor: Dr. Paul E. MacNeil

Office:       Suite 223a, School of Engineering

Phone:       478-301-2185

Email:        macneil_pe@mercer.edu

Textbooks and Supplies:

Texts (including web sites):

• Head First Design Patterns (1st ed.), by Freeman, Robson and Bates, O'Reilly, ISBN 978-0596007126 (2004) (required)

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Software (including web sites):

• A software development environment for your language of choice (C++, C#, Java) (Required, but your choice.)
• TBD - more information will be forthcoming
  
• An Internet ftp client of your choice.  Core FTP LE is free and works well http://www.coreftp.com/ .  (Required, but your choice)

Other Useful Resources (including web sites):

Catalog Description (Course Purpose):

Advanced topics in object oriented design (OOD), emphasizing the reuse of successful designs via design patterns.

The text is written in Java. Your implementation language may be Java, C#, or (object-oriented) C++.

This Online Learning course begins on January 6, 2014.

Course Objectives:

Breadth and Depth in Defining, Analyzing, and Solving Complex Problems:

• After successfully completing this course, you should be able to demonstrate a basic capability to apply design pattern development techniques to solve complex problems.

Communicate Technical Aspects of the Solution of Complex Software Engineering Problems to a Technical Audience:

• After successfully completing this course, you should be able to demonstrate a basic ability to communicate regarding the application of design pattern development techniques to a technical audience.

Prerequisites:

SSE 550.

Class Location:

• The Online Learning asynchronous "meetings" take place in Cyberspace; i.e., on the Internet.

Grading:

Credit will be given only for original work.

The Mercer University Student Handbook, including its provisions for academic honesty (including plagiarism), apply to all Mercer students.

Project reports are to be submitted complete, not as incremental partial submissions.

All course work is categorized as either Direct or Non-Direct (but not both). More information about the Direct and Non-Direct categories is contained in the Direct and Non-Direct and Report Logs. Please read these pages very carefully.

Instruction Time

Federal and regional accreditation requirements stipulate that a 3-credit hour course must include 150 minutes of direct instruction time per week. For this course, that direct instruction time includes"

• Collaborative discussions with other students regarding the content of readings assigned for the course.
• Collaborative discussions with other students regarding the content that goes beyond readings assigned for the course, but is not part of work on the projects assigned on the syllabus.
• Collaborative development of generic technology that may be useful for your project(s), but is not, in its generic form, part of your project.

In addition to the 150 minutes of direct instruction time each week, students are expected to spend a minimum of 300 additional minutes per week completing reading and writing assignments:

• Doing the assigned reading.
• Working on the projects assigned on the syllabus.

More information about the Direct and Non-Direct categories is contained in the Direct and Non-Direct and Report Logs. Please read these pages very carefully.

Use the Report Logs to help you to manage your time and keep on schedule. You should schedule your work evenly throughout the term. If you fall behind schedule for your Direct Activities, and you "catch up" by your last Direct Activity Report, your previous Direct Activity Report grades can be raised to reflect your success in meeting this requirement, provided that your previous Direct Activity Reports were submitted in a timely manner. Direct Activity Reports not submitted in a timely manner will receive a grade of 0 (zero) unless the professor has approved an extension in advance.

The Non-Direct Activity reports do not receive a separate grade, but are used to help in evaluating your project reports.

More information about project grading is contained in the General Project Rubric .

• Purpose of projects:
• Use the projects to develop your capabilities, and
• Use the projects to demonstrate your capabilities.
• Deliverables for all projects:

  All course work is categorized as either Direct or Non-Direct (but not both). Read Direct and Non-Direct and Report Logs before continuing. Please read these pages very carefully.

  • All Direct Activity Reports include a Direct Activity Log, and may include additional supporting material at your discretion.

  • All Project Reports include a Non-Direct Activity Log, in addition to your work on the project.

  • Projects shall be delivered via the course FTP site.
  • Project reports should each be a single, standalone .pdf document, with the Bookmark feature used to support easy document navigation. Note that both MS Word and LibreOffice (which is free open-source software) support bookmarks, and will carry the bookmarks over into the pdf document when they convert your .docx, .odf, or whatever file type to PDF.
  • Project reports should focus on the development and/or maintenance that you actually do. Reports should not focus on summarizing or explaining the text or other materials.
  • Inclusion of screenshots demonstrating your work, and code you actually wrote for the project, are appropriate. Long code listings can be placed in appendices if doing so does not interfere with you presenting your work on that code in the body of the text.
  • Your report should be organized in such a way as to make the topics that you want credit for covering easy to find, and demonstrate your capabilities clearly and convincingly. Everything you want considered for credit, including code and tests (including test results), should be included in the report.
  • Each project can be a single, integrated project that tries to actually do something, or a collection of exercises that demonstrate your capabilities but don't accomplish anything else, or any combination of these two alternatives that you find convenient
  • You may include other material outside of the report (on the FTP site), if you wish, but this material may or _may not_ be considered in evaluating your work.
  • For each capability that you demonstrate within a report or major section of that report, you may present only the final result of your work; you need not demonstrate every step in the development of that result.
• Some suggestions for doing a project are contained in the One Way to Do a Project page.

1. Demonstrate the four design patterns (not including Singleton) covered in the assigned readings in "Head First Design Patterns".
2. If you include a pattern that is partially or wholly included in a programming language (such as Observer or Iterator in Java), then do and present your own implementation of that pattern (those patterns); don't just apply what someone else has already programmed (such as Java's event handling capabilities for Observer).
3. For each design pattern, explain in detail what your alternative design would be, and what problem with that design the use of this pattern solves (if it does).
4. Explain in detail what is good about your Design Pattern (DP)-based design, and what is problematic about your DP-based design.
5. Create implementations for your designs, and test them in such a way that you clearly demonstrate the success of your design.
6. Presume that you are writing your report to convince a hiring manager with whom you will otherwise have no contact that you are competent in the topics covered in this assignment. Assume that this manager is an experienced and intelligent software developer, but has not read our text. Presume that this manager is skeptical, and that your report will have to be clearly convincing in supporting your claim that you are competent (in the topics covered in this assignment). Clarity, completeness, and correctness count, as does your coverage of design patterns. You probably can't cover all of the DPs in the text, so make a judicious selection from among them.
7. As a check on how well you are doing with regard to convincing that hypothetical manager of your competence, try to reverse roles in your own mind. Imagine that you are the manager, and your success/raise/continued employment depend on you hiring someone who does this job well. How well does the report convince you that the person who wrote it really can "do patterns" well?
8. If you create new designs for an existing piece of code, include this code in your report.
9. If you create new designs for an existing piece of code, you may use any piece of code that you wish, subject to conformance to any legal requirements (e.g., don't release anyone's proprietary code), and the dictates of morality, ethics, and good taste.
10. Manage the scope; don't try to do something too big or too small.

1. Same as Project 1, except please cover design patterns that you did not cover in Project 1.

1. Same a Project 2, except please cover design patterns that you did not cover in Projects 1 and/or 2.

• Please raise questions and issues via the course listserv.

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  Additional Information:

  • Asynchronous Learning Nets (ALNs)
  • • Self Study: You study the texts and any other course study material on your own(team).
    • Collaborative Projects: After your self-study, you collaborate (via the Internet [email]) with your partner(s) to produce a team product. Your collaborative work is substantial, asynchronous, and rapid.
    • This course is an online learning course. Please read this Online Learning web page regarding online learning in this course and this program.

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  • What Do I Do?
  • Subscribe to the course email listserv. Your professor can tell you how to do this.
  • Study the assigned material.
  • Write and read email messages about ideas, problems and solutions to do with the assigned study material.
  • Do the assigned work, deliver the assigned deliverables.
  • Write and read email messages (to/from the listserv) about ideas, problems and solutions to do with the assigned homework.
  • Review the deliverables produced by other people.

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  Changes to this Syllabus:

  There will be changes to this syllabus, so check back frequently, and don't forget to hit "Reload" or "Refresh".

   

  Schedule of Events and Assignments:

  Start Date	End Date	Activity/Event
  January 6, 2014	April 25, 2014	Course in Progress
  	NLT January 8, 2014	Identify your selected language for this course in an email message to the _course_ listserv.
  January 6, 2014	February 10, 2014	Study Intro. - Chapter 5 in the textbook. Work on Project 1
  	February 3, 2014	Direct Activity Report 1 due.
  	February 10, 2014	Project 1 due.
  	March 17, 2014	Direct Activity Report 2 due.
  February 11, 2014	March 17, 2014	Study Chapter 6 - Chapter 10 in the textbook. Work on Project 2
  	March 17, 2014	Project 2 due.
  	April 25, 2014	Direct Activity Report 3 due.
  March 18, 2014	April 25, 2014	Study Chapter 11 - Appendix in the textbook. Work on Project 3
  	April 25, 2014	Project 3 due.
  	April 25, 2014	Course ends. Firm date.

  Notes:

  tbd

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  Contact Information

  • My Name: Dr. Paul E. MacNeil
  • My E-mail: macneil_pe@mercer.edu .
  • My Office Phone: 478 301-2185
  • US Mail:
   
  • Dr. Paul E. MacNeil
  • School of Engineering
  • Mercer University
  • 1400 Coleman Ave.
  • Macon, GA 31207

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  Important Additional Information:
  

  “Students requiring accommodations or modifications for a disability should inform the instructor at the close of the first class meeting or as soon as possible. The instructor will refer you to the ACCESS and Accommodation Office to document your disability, determine eligibility for accommodations under the ADAAA/Section 504 and to request a Faculty Accommodation Form. Disability accommodations or status will not be indicated on academic transcripts. In order to receive accommodations in a class, students with sensory, learning, psychological, physical or medical disabilities must provide their instructor with a Faculty Accommodation Form to sign. Students must return the signed form to the ACCESS Coordinator. A new form must be requested each semester. Students with a history of a disability perceived as having a disability or with a current disability who does not wish to use academic accommodations are also strongly encouraged to register with the ACCESS and Accommodation Office and request a Faculty Accommodation Form each semester. For further information, please contact Carole Burrowbridge, Director and ADA/504 Coordinator, at 301-2778 or visit the ACCESS and Accommodation Office website at http://www.mercer.edu/disabilityservices.

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  Accreditation: Mercer University is accredited by SACSCOC.