You should be familiar with the contents of the 1000- and 2000-level computer science courses, and, in particular, understand procedural and data abstraction, information hiding, algorithm design and evaluation, and the tools used to reason about programs: discrete mathematics and predicate logic.
The course is divided into five two-week sections, with each section covering a part of the software engineering processes. Consult the syllabus for details.
The class meets in Skiles 249, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11:00 a.m. to
noon except on 27 November, when where will be no class due to the Thanksgiving
break.
Objectives
Software engineering is a large and squishy subject, and it's unrealistic to
expect this class to be anything more than an introduction to the principle
concepts and ideas. The main objective of this course is to prepare you for
the rest of the courses in the software engineering track. The second
objective is to teach you enough about software engineering so that you'll be
able to hold you own in a general conversation about software engineering, such
as might be had during a job interview (this is also known as becoming
buzzword compliant).
Personnel
Instructor:
R. Clayton,
GCATT desk H4, clayton@cc.gatech.edu. Office hours are 10:15 to 10:45
in the CCB commons area, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm also usually happy
to talk to you any time you can catch me (setting up an appointment before hand
is recommended, finger clayton@cc for my schedule).
TA:
Jerome Davis; CCB 153, jdavis@cc.gatech.edu. Office hours are Tuesdays
1 to 2 p.m. and other times by appointment.
Grading
The final grade comes from test scores and group project grades.
There will be five tests, given every other week on Fridays, starting with 9 October; see the syllabus for the schedule. Tests will be given in class, and are closed book with no notes; calculators and computers will not be necessary. The tests are cumulative, covering everything taught up to and including the Wednesday before the test; however, it's a good bet that each test will concentrate on the material taught in the two weeks prior to the test. There is no midterm or final. Test answers will be made available off the home page about an hour after the test.
The group project runs through the five major phases of a software engineering project; see the project description for more details.
Half the final grade comes from the average of the five test scores; the other half of the final grade comes from the average of the the five group project scores. For graduating seniors, half the final grade comes from the average of the first four test scores; the other half comes from the average of the the first four group project scores.
Spelling will count. Software engineers must communicate with cultures different from their own, and to do so successfully requires an empathetic ability to gather information and a clear and forthright ability to disseminate information.
I use the usual grade ranges: 90 or above rates an A; from 80 (inclusive) to 90
(exclusive) rates a B; and so on. No grades are adjusted to a curve.
Media
Textbook
The textbook is Software Engineering: Theory and Practice by
S. Pfleeger, Prentice Hall, 1998. As of
3:10 p.m. Wednesday, 28 August, the Georgia Tech bookstore had around fifty
copies; or, if you're feeling lucky, you can try
web shopping roulette.
News Groups
The class newsgroup is git.cc.class.3302b, a GT local newsgroup; do not
become confused by 3302a, the news group for your colleagues in Section A of
this course, or by 3302, a news group which will be unused this term. You
should get in the habit of checking 3302b regularly; I usually post questions
and answers e-mailed to me (see e-mail below), and refer redundant questioners
to the news group for details.
You might also want to take a look at comp.software-eng, a USENet news
group on software engineering. You'll probably need a rigorous kill-file to
make this news group readable, but it might be worth the effort because I have
a feeling that this news group will be an invaluable source of test questions.
E-mail
You should feel free to send me e-mail. Unless I warn you beforehand, I'll
usually respond within a couple of hours; if I don't respond within a day,
resend the message. If your message is of general interest to the class, I'll
post it, suitably stripped of identification and along with my answer, to the
news group.
Class Home Page
If you're reading this on paper, you can find the Web version at
www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs3302b_98_fall.
Links to Further Information
A incestuous tangle of software-engineering links I've collected while
developing material for this class.
comp.software-eng newsgroup archive at Queens University.
- Mike McCracken, Software Engineering and Project Management Home Page
Previous quotes.
Course Evaluation Comments
There were fifty students in the class, twenty filled out the course evaluation
forms, and three wrote comments. Here are the comments (all, as Stan Mack used
to say, guaranteed verbatim):
This page last modified on 23 January 1999.