1. CS427: Software Engineering I
Grigore Rosu

2. Course staff Instructor: Grigore Rosu
Teaching and research on formal methods, programming languages, software engineering
Teaching Assistants (TAs - alphabetically)
Tao Mo
Daejun Park
Qing Ye
Yi Zhang

3. Recent past course staff
Instructors
Tao Xie, Darko Marinov, Danny Dig, Ralph Johnson
TAs
Qing Ye, Ali Kheradmand, Jayasi Mehar, Boyang Chen, August Shi, Farah Hariri, Semih Okur, Wenbo Yu, Qian Cheng, Boyang Peng, Shy-Yauer Lin, David (Wei) Yang, Jingning Zhang, Owolabi Legunsen, Amarin Phaosawasdi, Xiaoyu Chen, Dasgupta, Sandeep, Caius Brindescu, Nick Chen, Samira Tasharofi, Rajesh Kumar, Yun Young Lee, Cosmin Radoi, Shin Hwei Tan, …
We’ll be building on their material

4. Today’s goals Meet the course staff Present some course logistics
What is software engineering?
What is in CS427?
Should you take it or not?
How can you succeed (or fail) in it?

5. Electronic communication
Announcements, questions, answers
Piazza
You have been added automatically to Piazza
If you don’t want to be added, please me asap
You can ask any questions, even anonymously
This is how we prefer to set up our individual meetings with you, too (send private messages)
Compass
Class-wide announcements (via )

6. No textbook, but yes … reading
No textbook required
Some (text)books recommended
See Wiki
Required reading linked from Schedule
Lots of easy reading: “broad but shallow”
Reading will be on the EXAM
Some reading even for this lecture (read it)

7. Grading For 3 hours of credit For 4 hours of credit
Project - 40%
Machine problems - 30%
Final exam - 25%
Quizes - 5%
Class / piazza participation - 3% gives as extra-credit
For 4 hours of credit
Larger project or book report
For fairness, we report all cheating
Messing with git history to pretend your MP/homework was handled before deadline is considered CHEATING
More info on Wiki

8. Team project Teamwork is mandatory in this course
We make larger teams (usually ~8 students)
May use CATME (Brian Bailey) for team forming
The goal is to have realistic experience
Courses that satisfy team component
Traditionally: 427 (& 428/429), 493 (& 494)
Could do senior thesis instead of these courses
Several more: 445, 465, 467, 498 section on cloud computing
Additional courses will be added soon

9. Prerequisites Official description is outdated
CS373 has merged with CS374
CS225 is good for job interviews but not strongly required for us
If in doubt, please discuss with me

10. Group Discussion: Most Important Skills for A Software Engineer/Developer
Requirement:
Get into a group of three neighboring students

11. Group Discussion: Most Important Skills for A Software Engineer/Developer
Requirement:
Get into a group of three neighboring students
More??

12. Group Discussion: Most Important Skills for A Software Engineer/Developer
Requirement:
Get into a group of three neighboring students
Designate a student to be a scribe
Share and discuss respective answers together with
“Why such answers”
Reach group consensus on the top 3 skills

13. 5 minutes for the above steps
Group Discussion: Most Important Skills for A Software Engineer/Developer
Requirement:
Get into a group of three neighboring students
Designate a student to be a scribe
Share and discuss respective answers together with
“Why such answers”
Reach group consensus on the top 3 skills
Will call for volunteer groups or randomly pick groups
5 minutes for the above steps

14. One Example (John Sonmez) of Most Important Skills for A Software Engineer/Developer
Solving Problems
Teaching Yourself (learning to learn)
Naming (building abstractions)
Dealing with People

15. Another Example (Matt Weisfeld) of Most Important Skills for A Software Engineer/Developer
Company sizes:
Small (<=10 employees), Medium (>10,<=100), Large (>1000)
What are the most important skills (technical, soft skills or otherwise) you look for in hiring a programmer?
Do you focus on a specific programming language or technology (i.e., would you pass on a good programmer who lacks a specific skill that your company uses or would you train them)?
How important are the soft skills (writing, presentation and other communications skills)?
Do your programmers create new code (product) or are they working on maintaining existing code implementing and implementing third-party products?

16. 1. What are the most important skills you look for in hiring a programmer?
Large Companies
4-Year college degree, strong background, experience, passionate about technology, professionally driven, articulate & well-spoken.
Combination of technical and soft skills. Fundamentals of programming logic; ability to apply fundamentals to ANY code base they encounter.
Medium Companies
Ability to: solve problems; learn new technologies; find solutions to problems using the internet. Mindset of efficiency and creativity.
Small Companies
Decent team player. Easy to get along with. One difficult employee can create a whole ton of problems. Most skills can be learned and improved – what are often times hard to change are a person’s nature and character… Interpersonal skills important.
Bottom Line: 4-year college degree (large companies), passion for programming, interpersonal skills, problem solver, team player

17. 2. Do you focus on a specific programming language or technology?
Large Companies
Not really. Expect developers to be versatile and able to learn new technologies as long as they are similar (e.g., Java developer to be able to dive into .NET). Fundamentals of programming logic and the ability to apply those fundamentals to ANY code base they encounter.
Medium Companies
Depends on need. Programmer who can jump between languages is valuable; they are expected to have some experience with a language they’re applying for, even if just personal. Too many language and environment nuances; not enough profit in training someone from scratch.
Small Companies
It’s OK to train somebody, if you see other skills that you highly value. Expecting C++ programmer to pick up Java should be a safe bet, but, it could take some time to become proficient. There is also the environment issue, such as Linux versus Windows. A person who has been exclusive to one can pick up the other, and it’s worth it to train them if that’s an issue.
Bottom Line:  Programming logic required. Sometimes prefer specific technologies. Programmers expected to work in most environments.

18. 3. How important are the soft skills (writing, presentation, other communications skills)?
Large Companies
Soft skills extremely important. Once established as technically apt, soft skills are what generally drives promotions.
Communication skills very important, presentation skills less so.
Medium Companies
Depends on the level of the programmer. For someone junior, 90% coding and general aptitude, 10% soft skills. For someone more senior soft skills significant.
Small Companies
Soft skills can never hurt; often important. Even if a programmer can’t make Word/PowerPoint documents, they should be able to understand and communicate the big picture and how it fits into the overall pieces of the organization.
Bottom Line: Soft skills may ultimately be the most important skill, especially as you move up the ladder in an organization.

19. 4. Do your programmers create new code (product) or are they working on implementing and maintaining business systems (or a little of both)?
Large Companies
Separate teams called SM (Service Management) for application maintenance. Best developers almost always creating new code.
Medium Companies
Mostly new code, but there is some systems work.
Small Companies
A little of both. Many companies talk about new code, but many programmers end up maintaining existing code. Whatever is or has a very high chance of bringing in revenue gets the attention.
Writing new code in established businesses often difficult. In many cases, new software comes from purchasing from smaller companies. That leads to the idea that new code comes from smaller and newer companies, and maintenance comes from established companies.
Bottom Line: Companies looking for programmers to maintain code and create new code (but watch out what “new code” means).

20. Desirable Characteristics of Employees (e.g., at Google)
“the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it’s not I.Q. It’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly. It’s the ability to pull together disparate bits of information.”
“The second is leadership — in particular emergent leadership as opposed to traditional leadership. When faced with a problem and you’re a member of a team, do you, at the appropriate time, step in and lead. And just as critically, do you step back and stop leading, do you let someone else? Because what’s critical to be an effective leader in this environment is you have to be willing to relinquish power.” - humility and ownership

21. What is (not) S.E.? Not just software programming Not just a process
Individual vs. team
Not just a process
Field that studies several different processes

22. Some definitions of S.E.
IEEE 610 (standard on SE terminology), Wikipedia:
“The application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the design, development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these; that is, the application of engineering to software.”
Bauer:
“The establishment and use of sound engineering principles in order to obtain economically software that is reliable and works efficiently on real machines.”
“Software engineering is the part of computer science which is too difficult for the computer scientist.” 

23. Developing software (Developing) Product (Learning) Process
CS423 (Operating Systems)
CS426 (Compiler Construction)
... (many other courses on technical topics)
(Learning) Process
CS242 (Programming Studio)
CS427/8 (Software Engineering I/II)
CS465 (User Interface Design)
… (many other courses with team projects)
(Dealing with) People

24. Software varies Size How humans interact with it
Requirements stability/knowledge
Need for reliability
Need for security
Portability
Cost

25. Example: Microsoft Powerpoint
Size: ?
Interactiveness: ?
Requirements: ?
Reliability: ?
Security: ?
Portability: ?
Cost: ?

26. Example: Microsoft Powerpoint
Size: large
Interactiveness: high
Requirements: frequent new features
Reliability: moderate
Security: low (at least used to be)
Portability: high
Cost: high

27. Example: Space shuttle software
Size: moderate to large
Interactiveness: low
Requirements: stable
Reliability: very high
Security: low (at least for now)
Portability: low (until recently; see NASA’s CFS)
Cost: high

28. Example: Online shopping software
Size: moderate
Interactiveness: high
Requirements: frequent new features
Reliability: high
Security: high
Portability: low
Cost: low

29. Your example Size: Interactiveness: Requirements: Reliability:
Security:
Portability:
Cost:

30. Software process
IEEE 1074 (standard for developing software life cycle processes):
“A set of activities performed towards a specific purpose”
Pressman:
“A framework for the tasks that are required to build high- quality software”
Johnson:
“The steps a particular group follows to develop software”

31. Activities in IEEE 1074 (1) Project Management Development
Project initiation
Project monitoring and control
Software quality management
Development
Requirements
Design
Implementation

32. Activities in IEEE 1074 (2) Post-development Integral processes
Installation
Operation and support
Maintenance
Retirement
Integral processes
Verification and validation
Software configuration management
Documentation development

33. Defined processes eXtreme Programming (XP) – we follow in cs427
Rational Unified Process
Scrum
Cleanroom
Bazaar …

34. Purpose of course
Be able to join a software project group and follow their process
Goals
Learn a particular process (XP)
Learn steps common to most processes
Software configuration management (SCM), testing, metrics, documentation, reverse engineering, refactoring
Learn how to follow a process
Learn how to change/improve a process

35. Two-course sequence CS427 CS428
Configuration management, testing, metrics, debugging, reverse engineering, refactoring, documentation
Work with an existing large software project
CS428
Requirements, architecture, design, documentation, management
Start a new project from scratch

36. Project Learn architecture of large software project
iTrust (different from last year: K)
Learn modern SE practices - SCM, unit testing, automated build, documentation, pair programming, refactoring
Learn modern SE environment – IntelliJ
Learn a process – XP (eXtreme Programming)
Start at bottom and work your way up

37. Why iTrust ? Open-source, well-documented project Notes:
Role-based healthcare web application
Related to a practice covered in cs427
Unit tests in JUnit
Package management with Maven
Notes:
Different from previous years (K, Jenkins, OpenMRS,…)
Students always hated the project used in CS427 

38. Semester outline Homework assignments Project Final Exam
Learn tools and practices for the project
Work first individually and later in pairs; will tell you when
MP0 will be out TODAY, due in a week
Let us know if you run into permission problems
Project
Add a feature to the selected codebase
Work in larger teams
Final Exam
Quizes distributed randomly throughout the class

39. Potential “pain” points
Reading
Goal: learn from experience of others
Approach: check previous exams and keep up with the reading
Teams
Goal: experience working in a larger team
Approach: make your team “jell”
Project
Goal: work with an existing large codebase
Approach: start using/learning the code on github early; ask questions early, main developers here

40. Summary course info
Wiki
Grade
Quizes (5%), final exam (25%), MPs (30%), project (40%)
3% extracredit from participation (class, piazza)
For 4 hours of credit: additional work
MP0
To be released today before midnight: check Wiki
Due in one week
About building and trying out iTrust