Engr 691-06: Special Topics in Engineering Science
Component Software
Fall Semester 2002
Syllabus

Locations

The fall semester 2002 class meets in Hume 106 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:15 on Tuesday and Thursday.

The class is taught by Prof. Conrad Cunningham, whose office is in 239 Kinard Hall. The official office hours for this class are from 1:30 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and at other times by appointment.

Prof. Cunningham's voice telephone number is (662) 915-5358 and fax number is (662) 915-5623. His WWW home page is http://www.cs.olemiss.edu/~hcc/ and his email address is cunningham@cs.olemiss.edu (send?).

The WWW home page for this class is http://www.cs.olemiss.edu/~hcc/compSoft/ .

The final examination for this class is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, 12 December 2002.

Student Disabilities Services Statement

"It is the responsibility of any student with a disability who requests a reasonable accommodation to contact the Office of Disability Services (915-7128). Contact will then be made by that office through the student to the instructor of this class. The instructor will then be happy to work with the student so that a reasonable accommodation of any disability can be made."

Course Goal

The goal of this course is to increase the students' abilities to understand, use, and construct component-based software systems.

Course Description

This special topics course will examine concepts and techniques for design and implementation of component-based software. The course will focus on technology-independent concepts and methods. However, for practical exercises, the course will use Enterprise JavaBeans and other Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) technologies.

Prerequisites

This class is intended for students admitted in full standing to the graduate program of the Department of Computer and Information Science. Students are expected to have a background in object-oriented programming, algorithms, data structures, and programming languages similar to the undergraduate courses CSCI 111, 112, 211, 433, and 450. Use of the Java programming language will be required in programming exercises. Completion of the Software Architecture course offered in Spring 2002 is a plus. Students will be expected to have a mature understanding of data abstraction, inheritance, polymorphism, composition, and other object-oriented concepts.

Graduate students in other fields should not be enrolled in this class without the explicit permission of the instructor and of their department. Any students in this category are expected to provide the instructor with a note from their advisor or department chair indicating such permission.

Source Materials

Required Textbook:

H. M. Deitel, P. J. Deitel, and S. E. Santry. Advanced Java 2 Platform: How to Program, Prentice-Hall, 2002. ISBN: 0-13-089560-1.

Reference books:

John Cheesman and John Daniels. UML Components: A Simple Process for Specifying Component-Based Software, Addison-Wesley, 2001. ISBN: 0-201-70851-5.

George T. Heineman and William T. Councill (editors), Component-Based Software Engineering: Putting the Pieces Together, Addison-Wesley, 2001. ISBN: 0-201-70485-4.

Readings:

Several journal and conference articles, research reports, and other materials as appropriate.

Course Topics

The actual topics and their order will be refined as the semester progresses. Also see the lecture notes page.

• Component-based software concepts.
• Requirements analysis: domain analysis.
• Requirements analysis: use cases.
• Component identification.
• Component interaction design.
• Component specification.
• Introduction to the Enterprise JavaBeans component model.
• Enterprise Java Beans as an implementation technology.
• Other component technologies.

Professional Conduct

As a student in Engr 691, you are expected to conduct yourself in a professional manner according to the Honor Code of the School of Engineering, the Information Technology Appropriate Use Policy, the M Book, and any other relevant policies.

Limited Collaboration Policy. Unless otherwise indicated, any homework assignment or programming exercise given in this class will be an individual assignment. The work you submit is to reflect the knowledge, understanding, and skill that you have attained as an individual. However, the instructor does want to encourage the development of a community of scholars who are actively engaged in discussion of the ideas related to this course. With this in mind, you are allowed to discuss solutions of the homework and programming problems with other students if done so according to the following guidelines:

• You may discuss ideas for homework and programming assignments with your classmates. However, you cannot collaborate on writing the solution or the program code. That is, you can talk about the problems and ideas for solving them, but you cannot write things down with anyone else. You are, of course, prohibited from copying or seeing another student's written solution, and you are not allowed to show your work to anyone else. Similarly, you are not allowed to copy text or program code from a book or a page on the Web unless explicitly authorized to do so by the instructor.

• You should accept help with care. If you work too closely with another student, you might mislead yourself into believing that you understand the concepts and techniques better than you actually do. Don't forget that the instructor has office hours and can probably give you hints or suggestions to get you started.

• You should give help with care. Do not help anyone too much. When you have solved a problem, it is tempting to just tell other students how you solved it. Instead, try to allow them to come to the solution on their own. Maybe give them a hint to help them get "over a hump." Remember that helping someone too much will hurt them in the long term if they can't work through problems on the exams by themselves. So avoid the temptation to do so. If you can't help other students without giving away the whole solution, direct them to see the instructor (who may or may not have a way to "edge" them toward the solution).

• You are not obligated to help anyone. If you feel uncomfortable helping another student for any reason, please direct them to see the instructor.

• Except as described above, all work in this class is covered by the School of Engineering's Honor Code statement on plagiarism. It is plagiarism "to knowingly deceive, copy, paraphrase, or otherwise misrepresent your work in a manner inconsistent with professional conduct".

Grading

The grading scale is A [90..100], B [80..90), C [70..80), D [60..70), and F [0..60).

Credit toward the semester grade will be allocated to each of the components as follows:

Assignments

• All students are expected to study the relevant portions of the textbooks and handouts in conjunction with our class discussions (i.e., before coming to class). Explicit reading assignments will not always be given.

• In preparing and submitting homework papers make sure that:
  • your name, the course number or name, the assignment identifier, and individual exercises are clearly marked on the paper. (If it is a group assignment, give the group identifier and the names of all members.)
  • for any handwritten work, you write legibly on only one side of the paper in a black or blue pen or dark pencil. (Do NOT use red or green ink!) Some assignments may require that materials be generated with a word processor and/or other tools.
  • your paper is stapled together in the upper left corner.

• Several of the homework assignments will be programming exercises.

  For these exercises, you will need to submit appropriate design documentation, a listing of your program code, and appropriate printed output from your program testing. Make sure that you clearly label the assignment as described above.

• As appropriate, there may be a few in-class assignments or quizzes that count toward the assignment/project portion of the grade.

• The projects will be carried out in small groups. One of these might involve presentation of a paper or other material to the class on some aspect of software architecture or related software technology. Another project may involve a significant programming effort.

• All students or groups are expected to complete their assignments by their due dates. If an assignment is submitted late, a penalty of 10 percent of that assignment's grade will be assessed for each day it is late. A homework assignment will not be accepted after graded papers have been returned, after a solution has been distributed, or after the final examination.

Examinations

• I plan three examinations, two mid-terms and a final. The final exam will be optional and may replace the lower of the two other exam grades.
• The exams may include both in-class and take-home components.
• Please do not ask to take the final exam at an earlier time than set for the entire class. You may use the other two exams for the exam portion of your grade.

Acknowledgement

Development of this course is being partially underwritten by a grant from Acxiom Corporation titled "The Acxiom Laboratory for Software Archtitecture and Component Engineering."

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