Engr 692: Special Topics in Engineering Science
(Ruby and Software Development)
Fall 2006
Syllabus

Locations

The Fall 2006 class meets in Weir 106 from 4:00 p.m. until 5:15 on Mondays and Wednesdays.

The class is taught by Prof. Conrad Cunningham, whose office is 203 Weir Hall. Prof. Cunningham's official office hours for this session are 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays or by appointment at other times.

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 AT cs DOT olemiss DOT edu.

The WWW home page for this class is http://www.cs.olemiss.edu/~hcc/engr692ruby/ .

The final examination for this class is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. on Friday, 8 December 2006.

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

Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to understand the programming paradigm underlying dynamically typed, object-oriented languages such as Ruby and be able to utilize the languages in contemporary software development practice.

Course Description

Ruby is a dynamically typed, object-oriented programming language that blends features from previous languages such as Smalltalk, Lisp, and Perl into a pure object-oriented language with a conventional syntax and a powerful semantics. This special topics course will critically examine the Ruby language and study how its features and the programming techniques it engenders can be used effectively in software development.

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. Students are 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

Textbook: (in bookstore)

Dave Thomas with Chad Fowler and Andy Hunt. Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, Second Edition, The Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2005. ISBN 0-9745140-5-5.

Optional reference books: (not in bookstore)

Lucas Carlson and Leonard Richardson. Ruby Cookbook, O'Reilly Media, July 2006. ISBN 0-596-52369-6.

Readings:

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

Course Topics

The actual topics will change depending somewhat upon the evolving interests of the instructor and students as the semester progresses. The course will begin with an overview of the basic syntax and semantics of the language, building upon the students' knowledge of languages such as Java and C++. Then the course will study the interesting features and their implications for software development.

• basic Ruby concepts
• behavioral typing (classes, objects, and variables)
• interface-oriented programming (design by contract)
• modular programming (modules and mixins)
• high-order programming features (e.g., blocks, procs)
• reflection and metaprogramming
• test-driven development and unit testing (Test::Unit)
• build automation (Rake) and packages (RubyGems)
• automated documentation (Rdoc)
• components and dependency injection frameworks
• design patterns in Ruby
• continuations
• monads
• threads and distributed systems

Professional Conduct

As a student in Engr 664, 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.

• 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 source materials in conjunction with our class discussions (i.e., before coming to class).

• 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.

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

• Some of the projects may be small group projects; others may be individual efforts. 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 analysis and design 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

• There will be three examinations; the third examination is optional.

• The examination portion of the semester grade will be calculated by averaging the two best examination grades.

• The first examination will be given in late September or early October.

• The second examination will be given in mid-November.

• The third examination will be given during the final examination period. (Students who opt not to take the final examination may be given an assignment that is due during finals week.)

• Each exam will cover all topics studied to that point.

• Each exam may consist of a combination of in-class and take-home components.

• If you cannot take an examination at the scheduled time because of an illness or other special circumstances, please notify Prof. Cunningham in advance. Without advance notification, it may not be possible to give a make-up examination.

• Please do not ask to take the final examination earlier than the time set for the entire class.

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