Aims and learning outcomes

The goal of the course is to enable students to master the engineering methods and processes that are necessary to produce complex applications with industrial strength quality. The course covers the software process and its organization, requirements, design methods and tools, specification, verification and validation. Each topic is treated both theoretically and practically through a project work.

 Syllabus

The software process and standards

• software lifecycles: waterfall, prototyping-based, evolutionary/incremental, spiral, agile methods
• standards for process improvement: ISO9001, CMMI

The software product and the socio-economic context

• business models
• licences, intellectual properties, open-source software
• project management and cost estimation

Notations and specification methods: Alloy

Problem definition: requirements engineering

• importance of requirements
• the Jackson-Zave approach (requirements, specification, domain)
• Usage of Alloy and UML to support requirement modeling activities

Methods and technologies for product development

• middleware
• software components: J2EE and .net
• software architectures and architectural styles

Verification and validation

• the verification process
• analysis, reviews, walkthroughs
• testing of functional and non-functional properties

 Laboratory activities

A project laboratory is integral part of the course. The objective of projects is to help students in applying the approaches and principles we teach in class. Projects will be assigned in the second half of October. Project artifacts are expected to be released at fixed deadlines that will be defined by the time the project will be assigned. The project evaluation will be based on the produced artifacts (documentation, code, …) and on a presentation. We will establish a peer review process to allow exchange of ideas among the project participants. Students who cannot take the project in this semester can take it in the next semester. In this case, no support by project tutors will be possible.

Prerequisites

Students are required to know the principles and methods of object-oriented design, the basic notions of UML, testing, and configuration management.

Further information

Further information will be provided on the course website.

A written exam at the end of the course and project in 4 parts developed in the laboratory part of the course.

Available also as e-book with ISBN 978EUDTE00263

If for any reason you are not included in the official list of course students, you may not been able to access the course material. In this case, I can grant you access provided that you request it through the site.