Sprint 0: Course Introduction

Course Overview:

Course Platform	ItsLearning and https://mickesv.github.io/OODesign/
Further Information
Course Responsible	Mikael Svahnberg, mailto:Mikael.Svahnberg@bth.se
Examiner	Mikael Svahnberg, mailto:Mikael.Svahnberg@bth.se
Other Teachers	Ricardo Britto, Raquel Ouriques

The overall goal in all the involved courses is to teach Object Oriented Design, and to understand how the design process fits into the overall development process. The involved courses takes a slightly different route towards this, where some focus more on the development process and the process components that lead up to the design process (PA1415), and others focus more on putting the design into a bigger technical context (i.e. the software architecture) (PA1443). The core of all courses is the Object Oriented Design, and we use UML and RUP for this part.

The detailed aims and contents for each of the courses are listed below (In swedish, copied from the respective course syllabus).

The course has an online presence as well as a campus existense.

The online presence consists of these pages, and is organised as a set of sprints, where each sprint focus on a small topic and a few user stories. In each sprint there are things to read and watch, as well as activities to do. The result of some of those activities will be submitted as assignments for marking. This is further detailed in Release Sprints where instructions about which documents to deliver are given.

The campus existense consists of lectures (that I try to run as seminars) and exercises. My idea is that you first study the online material, and then we can have lively discussions during the lectures/seminars. Basically, you go through the design notation and a basic understanding of the topic with the online material and then we discuss together what makes a good design.

Some of ther sprints are so called release sprints. In these sprints you primarily package what you have done in previous sprints, but you may also be requested to produce new material during the release sprint too. This is then delivered as a course assignment for marking.

Please see the Start Page for each course for information about which sprints, lectures, seminars, and assignments are relevant for each course.

The following learning outcomes apply to the different courses.

Course Code	Learning Outcomes
PA1415	- på en grundläggande nivå i grupp kunna ta fram krav på en programvara och uttrycka dem i en kravspecifikation
PA1415	- i grupp producera en översiktlig utvecklingsprojektplan baserat på en kravspecifikation
PA1415 (PA1435/PA1434)	- i grupp kunna skapa en detaljerad objektorienterad design för ett mjukvaruprogram
PA1415	- i grupp kunna implementera ett mjukvaruprogram inom rimlig tid, baserat på en kravspecifikation och en objektorienterad design
PA1415 (PA1443)	- på en grundläggande nivå i grupp kunna planera och genomföra testning av producerad programvara, baserat på en kravspecifikation
PA1415 (PA1435/PA1434)	- skapa och analysera objektorienterade artefakter uttryckta i UML
PA1415 (PA1435/PA1434/ PA1443)	- kunna motivera och använda designmönster i utvecklingen av mjukvarusystem
	Kunskap och förståelse
PA1435/PA1434/ PA1443	- kunna visa förståelse för grundläggande principer i objektorienterad programvaruutveckling.
PA1435/PA1434	- kunna visa förståelse för UML som modelleringsspråk.
PA1435/PA1434/ PA1443	- kunna visa kunskap om grundläggande designprinciper.
PA1435/PA1434/ PA1443	- kunna visa kunskap om grundläggande designmönster.
PA1443	- kunna visa kunskap om grundläggande mjukvaruarkitekturstilar
	Färdigheter och förmåga
PA1435/PA1434/ PA1443	- kunna uttrycka strukturen och beteendet hos ett system i termer av objektorienterade koncept.
PA1435/PA1434	- kunna korrekt använda UML för att uttrycka struktur och beteende hos ett system.
PA1435/PA1434	- kunna korrekt transformera en objektorienterad design till källkod.
PA1435/PA1434	- kunna tillämpa designprinciper och designmönster i allmänhet och inom en särskild domän.
PA1443	- kunna tillämpa grundläggande designmönster i en objektorienterad design.
PA1443	- kunna skapa en objektorienterad design för ett system enligt goda objektorienterade designprinciper
PA1443	- kunna tillämpa grundläggande arkitekturstilar för ett mjukvarusystem
PA1443	- kunna resonera om de kvalitetsegenskaper ett system med en viss arkitekturstil har eller bör ha
PA1443	- kunna resonera om och skapa en grundläggande testplan för ett objektorienterat system
	Värderingsförmåga och förhållningssätt
PA1435/ PA1434	- kunna analysera källkod för eventuella förbättringar.
PA1435/PA1434/ PA1443	- kunna analysera och kritiskt diskutera en design för eventuella förbättringar.

The Sprint Test Plan is a way to get an overview of your expectations in the course, in relation to the provided material, and align it with my expectations as course responsible and examiner. In some sense, it is also your strategy for learning the topics. I will not mark your Sprint Test Plan – you are creating and maintaining this for your own sake.

The Sprint Test Plan will be revisited during every sprint, so that you have an updated record of what you need to learn to pass the course.

I am loosely basing my suggestion for the Sprint Test Plan document on the IEEE 829-2008 standard. Feel free to add other information to it if you think it is relevant.

As you study, I expect that you will get more questions, or additional information sources (blog pages etc.) that you would like to read, and I hope you will also get ideas for places where you would like to test what you have learnt. Put these into a course backlog document (it will help if you put them in a roughly prioritised order), and then spend time during each sprint to resolve your backlog items.

At the end of the course, it is my hope that your backlog contains pointers to yourself with how you should go forward with the knowledge gained. For example, how can you use what you have learnt in upcoming courses? Are there any particularly interesting things you have found that you would like to study more? Are there any courses you are interested in taking as a consequence of taking this course? Are there any courses you would like to replace in your education as a consequence of taking this course? Are there any ideas you can use for your bachelor or master’s thesis?

The course backlog is revisited in every sprint. I will not mark it; you create it for your own benefit.

Introduction. In your future career you are going to use configuration management systems such as Subversion or Git, so why not start already now? This gives you an easy way to share work between your colleagues, and opens up for me to review your work even before you have submitted it.

If you also write your documents in for example Markdown, they are formatted for you by github. Myself, I am partial to Org-mode and Emacs, especially because of the nice integration with PlantUML for generating design diagrams and the excellent export facilities. Org-mode is also nicely supported by github.

Please note that this is currently optional. I do not require you to create a repository on github (or anywhere else, for that matter), but I strongly recommend that you start familiarising yourself with modern configuration management tools already now. Moreover, if you were to run into conflicts within your group, the commit record of a configuration management repository is an excellent starting point to figure out who has contributed what.

Things to do:

• Create an account on Github (or use your existing one)
• Create a Project for the course OOD-<course code>-<your name>
• (optional) Invite me (mickesv) to the project
• checkout your project and create a directory structure:
  • /Assignments/
  • /SprintTestPlan/
  • /CourseBacklog/
• add a file to each directory, otherwise you will not be able to commit them. For example, add an empty .gitignore file to each directory.
• commit and push

More info on Git

• Getting Started with Git – a mini-tutorial

Create a document with the following sections:

• Test Items. These are the assignments you are expected to submit for marking. It will probably be a good idea if you are able to tag them with the corresponding sprint, so that you can easily find them.
• Features to be Tested. These are the user stories at the top of every sprint. Describe each of these features in terms of the object oriented modelling concepts or software development concepts that you need to master before you can satisfy the user story.
• Approach. Here, you will describe your strategy for ensuring that you have learnt the material in the sprint. How do you ensure that you are confident that the assignments you submit will pass with the grade you are aiming for?
• Item Pass/Fail Criteria. What do you have to be able to show to yourself to ensure that you have learnt the material in the sprint? What do you have to show in the submitted assignments?
• Schedule. When do you plan on passing each test item and feature?
• Planning Risks and Contingencies. Are there any foreseeable risks that may limit your ability to pass the course on time? What is your contingency plan?
• Glossary. In this section you will build up a glossary of important terms in the course that you can use when studying. I suggest you collaborate with the rest of the class in the course discussion forum (on It’s Learning) and post your terms and definitions there so that they can be discussed.

In this sprint, the following items can be added already (you may think of more items, please add them too):

• Test Items
  • Exam Check Date
  • Exam Re-sit Check Date
• Approach
  • Outline your plan for reading the book and doing the sprints in time to be ready for the exam.
  • Describe your plan for joining a group of students (for the group assignments, and for study groups) with the same ambition level as you yourself have.
• Item Pass/Fail Criteria
  • Outline your ambition level; what grade are you aiming for?
• Schedule
  • Dates for assignment submissions are available on It’s Learning. Copy them here.
  • Add the exam dates.
• Planning Risks and Contingencies
  • Do you plan on taking any vacations (e.g., skiing trip, easter, ascension day, etc.)? When will you study more to compensate for this? Are your team-mates informed and ok with that you contribute less during these vacations?
  • What is the expected workload for the courses you may be taking in parallel? Does your plan for this course accomodate your plans for the other courses?
  • Do you have time available if you are asked to complete your submitted assignments with more information?
  • Are there any other risks you see at this stage?
• Glossary
  • Scrum
  • Sprint
  • User Story
  • Test Plan

Main Literature (All Courses)

C. Larman, Applying UML and Patterns, Prentice Hall, 3rd Edition.

This book is a complete guide to all things UML, with plenty of examples and detailed descriptions of all diagrams and how to think when using them. The reading instructions in each sprint are based on the 3rd edition, but I recommend you to try to find an older edition since they are essentially the same but with less text.

Reference Literature (PA1415)

I. Sommerville, Software Engineering, Pearson, 8th edition, 2006.

There is also a 9th and a 10th edition (and, of course, the preceeding editions). It does not really matter which one you get. You will use this book as a reference to look up e.g. how a GANTT chart works in case the internet is down.

Reference Literature (PA1434, PA1435)

Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides, Design Patterns, Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, Addison-Wesley Professional.

This book, also called the Gang of Four book is the reference work when it comes to design patterns. You will be using this book a lot in your future career. If you want to save some money, the most common design patterns are also covered in C. Larman (and these are the ones we will be focusing on in these courses).

Note to PA1415: I warmly recommend that you too get this book even if it is not oficially part of “your” course plan.

R. Nystrom, Game Programming Patterns, Genever Benning, 2014.

Also Available at: http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/contents.html

Reference Literature (PA1443)

L. Bass, R. Kazman, P. Clements, Software Architecture in Practice, Addison-Wesley, 2012. ISBN-10: 0321815734

A general-purpose software architecture book. I find this book to be less hands on with a design methodology and more shoot-from-the-hip, but there is a large section on architecture tactics, i.e. solutions and structures that address different quality concerns. These are, I find, a great inspiration for the architectural decisions.

Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides, Design Patterns, Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, Addison-Wesley Professional.

This book, also called the Gang of Four book is the reference work when it comes to design patterns. You will be using this book a lot in your future career. If you want to save some money, the most common design patterns are also covered in C. Larman (and these are the ones we will be focusing on in these courses).

 

We expect all the assignments to be done in teans consisting of three to five people. Use the following (in this order) to find and/or form a team:

1. Your friends
2. It’s Learning
3. Gitter
4. First Classroom Lecture
5. Course Teacher

Decide in your team how to deal with configuration management (e.g., who creates the git repository (remember to share it with me)), and decide on a schedule for when and how often you plan on working. If you know that you need to be out of touch for some reason (e.g. spring break), agree within the team how to handle this.

Take a look at the Assignment Map to see which assignments are relevant for you and how they are connected to each other.

Where do you go from here? Are there any questions already now that you want answered? Add them, along with a brief strategy for how to find an answer.