Catalog copy 

CS 116. Software Design Project Students in teams specify, design,
 construct, test, and document a complete software system in a
 specialized application domain. Class time is spent in technical
 discussions and ongoing design reviews. A formal presentation and
 demonstration of each project is required. An organizational meeting
 will be held during the preceding quarter. Projects may be drawn from
 industry and campus research groups. Prerequisite(s): courses 115,
 either 104A or 111, and Computer Engineering 185. Computer engineering
 majors are required to have completed the computer engineering core
 examination requirement. J. Whitehead, L. Werner

Explanation of prerequisites 
CS115: Students need to have a understanding of the fundamental
 activities of Software Engineering.
CS 104A or CS 111: Students need to have worked on a significant
 programming assignment, as well as have knowledge of either the
 internals of a compiler, or an operating system, to permit advanced
 project work.
CE 185: Students need to have proficiency in technical expression in
 English.
 
Required skills to pass the course.
1. Construct and evaluate an architectural
   representation of a software system.
2. Write simple specifications in a formal
   specification language.
3. Develop an appropriate software development
   process team(s) of developers can use in a given 
   development context.
4. Use of automated testing tools.

Core topics
1. Software architecture analysis
   a. Architecture description languages
   b. Architectural analysis techniques
      i. Analysis of technical aspects of
         architecture
      ii. Analysis of effectiveness as a
         stakeholder communication mechanism
   c. Component-based software development
2. Formal specification
   a. Styles of formal specification languages
   b. Use of one formal specification language
3. Software development processes for coordinating
   activities of team(s) of engineers and other
   project personnel
4. Software testing technology
5. Best practices for effective communication of 
   requirements and design decisions in both
   written (project documents) and oral
   (project presentations) form.
6. Negotiation techniques used in requirements
   and cross-team interface definition

Optional topics 
1. Advanced topics in Software Engineering
2. Use of project-appropriate software tools
3. Formal proofs of correctness
4. Change impact analysis
5. Software slicing

Core lab exercises 
1. Working in a 3-5 person team to execute a substantial term-long 
   software project.
   a. Project work is divided into phases, where each phase has
      one or more documents and/or source code as deliverables.
      Teams will be expected to specify the software development
      process and schedule they will follow during the course, 
      however each team is expected to perform the following
      activities:
      i. Requirements elicitation, including scenario-oriented
         communication and negotiation with project customer. 
         Production of a requirements specification document,
         including a series of use-case scenarios.
      ii. Design, including a software architecture diagram
         with descriptive text, and detailed design, typically
         a series of UML structure and sequence diagrams, and
         use of other UML diagrams as appropriate. Additional
         descriptive text concerning the design, as needed to
         clarify design decisions. Traceability matrix from
         design to requirements.
      iii. User manual and user interface prototype. A document
         describing how to operate the project, and a paper-based
         user interface prototype.
      iv. Formal specification of a limited set of high-risk 
         portions of the project, along with descriptive text
         and specification annotations. Traceability matrix from
         specification to requirements.
      v. Risk analysis, identifying key technical and managerial
         risks inherent in the project, and steps being taken
         to mitigate these risks.
      vi. Test plans, describing testing strategies, as well as how
         advanced testing technology will be incorporated into the
         test activity. Development of a regression test capability.
         Traceability information correlating tests with specific 
         requirements.
      Note there may be some variation due to the actual development
      process chosen (for example, an evolutionary prototyping
      approach might involve rapid cycles through a
      requirements-design-code-risk analysis cycle, with formal
      specification done as needed on tricky sections of code,
      and test plans produced later in the quarter).

   b. Project work will involve multiple teams working on different
      sets of components in a large system. Involves cross-team
      negotiation of component boundaries, interfaces, and protocols.

   c. Project status monitoring will involve multiple in-class
      presentations, involving on-the-spot design and requirements 
      review, risk analysis, and project planning, based on the
      content (and missing content) in presentations.
      
 
Optional lab exercises 
1. Use of advanced software development tools
 
Comments on follow-on courses 
CS 116 is terminal, but interested students could continue on into
the graduate introduction to software engieering, CE 276.

Texts

Paul Clements, Rick Kazman, Mark Klein, "Evaluating Software
Architectures: Methods and Case Studies", Addison-Wesley,
2002. Chapters 3 (The ATAM - A Method for Architecture Evaluation), 6
(A Case Study in Applying the ATAM), 7 (Using SAAM to Evaluate an
Example Architecture), 8 (ARID - An Evaluation Method for Partial
Architectures), and 9 (Comparing Software Architecture Evaluation Methods)

Ince, D, "An introduction to discrete mathematics, formal system
specification, and Z", 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 1992.

Additionally, the course uses a reader to cover advanced topics, as
well as selection of appropriate software development processes, and
automated software testing tools.

Prepared by Jim Whitehead, 10/02