next up previous contents
Next: Software Engineering II (50% Up: Lent Term 2002: Part Previous: Programming in Java   Contents

Software Engineering I (50% option only)

Lecturer: Dr A.F. Blackwell (afb21@cl.cam.ac.uk)

No. of lectures: 6

This course is a prerequisite for the Group Project (Part IB).


Aims


This course aims to introduce the students to software engineering, and in particular to the problems of building large systems, safety-critical systems and real-time systems. Case histories of software failure are used to illustrate what can go wrong, and current software engineering practice is studied as a guide to how failures can be avoided.


Lectures


This is the syllabus for 2000-2001. There may be some changes for 2001-2002.

Objectives


At the end of the course students should know how writing programs with tough assurance targets, in large teams, or both, differs from the programming exercises they have engaged in so far. They should appreciate the waterfall, spiral and evolutionary models of software development and be able to explain which kinds of software project might profitably use them. They should appreciate the value of other tools and the difference between incidental and intrinsic complexity. They should understand the software development life cycle and its basic economics. They should be prepared for the organisational aspects of their Part IB group project (in the case of Part IA students) or their first professional assignment (in the case of Part II (General) and Diploma students).


Recommended books


Pressman, R.S. (1994). Software Engineering. McGraw-Hill.
Leveson, N. (1994). Safeware. Addison-Wesley.
Maguire, S. (1993). Writing Solid Code. Microsoft Press.


Further reading:


Brooks, F.P. (1975). The Mythical Man Month. Addison-Wesley.
Neumann, P. (1994). Computer-Related Risks. ACM Press.
Lyu, M.R. (1995). Handbook of Software Reliability Engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press.
Wiener, L.R. (1993). Digital Woes. Addison-Wesley.
Report of the Inquiry into the London Ambulance Service (SW Thames RHA, 40 Eastbourne Terrace, London W2 3QR, February 1993).
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/A.Finkelstein/las.html



next up previous contents
Next: Software Engineering II (50% Up: Lent Term 2002: Part Previous: Programming in Java   Contents
Christine Northeast
Tue Sep 4 09:34:31 BST 2001