Week 2b - Getting Started with Projects

Synopsis:

Lecture Content:

Web Resourses:

1. The Syllabus describes topics to be covered, reading material for you to digest before coming to class, and due dates for the assigned projects.

2. Primary Focus Today - Projects:

   In the video lectures we discuss Sample Projects, similar to the ones you will be implementing. In these corresponding synchronous lectures the instructor will provide some limited guidance for each of your projects.

   • Project #1
     Operational Concept Document for Project #2
     An OCD is concerned with three things:
     • users
     • structure
     • critical issues
   • Project #2
     
     When starting an implementation you think about:
     • Tasks
     • Organizing Principles
     • Communication
     • Sharing

     You may wish to follow along as we use Workflowy and gliffy¹ to help you think about your program's architecture and design.
   • Project #3
     Code prototypes for Project #4
   • Project #4
     Remote Multi-threaded Application
     

   All code will be developed using C# and the .Net Framework Class Library with the latest version of Visual Studio.

   How will your submissions be evaluated? OCD grade sheet, Code grade sheet Grading Policy

3. Software Architecture References:

   • Problem with Dependencies, Components are Building Blocks
     Motivation for a lot of what we do in this course.
   • Software Architecture and the Operational Concept Document (OCD)
     
   • UML Notation, UML - uml-diagrams.org UML - Embarcadero.com
     The Universal Modeling Language is used to describe software with means other than code. You will use these diagramming techniques in your OCD.
   • Example Diagrams:
     Package Diagram, Activity Diagram, Simple Class Diagram, Detailed Class Diagram, Sequence Diagram, Structure Chart, State Diagram, Data Flow Diagram, Ad Hoc Diagram
   • Project Center Use Cases
     This presentation was developed for a Software Studio project. It gives you a good idea of the kind of analyses you need for an OCD.
   • Getting Started!, Study Guide - OCD, Operational Concept Document (OCD) Survival Guide
   • Example OCDs prepared by students in previous classes:
     OCD Sample #1 - Ben Kraines
     OCD Sample #2 - Sneha Patil
     OCD Sample #3 - Tian You
     
   • Writing with Style, Third Edition, John Trimble, Prentice-Hall, 2010, ISBN 978-0205028801
     This book has nothing to do with software, but is the best book I've seen on writing well. It's written with great style, brief, humorous, and filled with good ideas and advice.

4. Looking Ahead - Getting to know C#:

   • C# versus C++
     
   • Class Text C# 6.0 in a Nutshell, Chapters 1-3.

5. C# Code Examples and Tutorials:

   • Getting Started with C#
   • C# code examples
   • C# Code Examples - MSDN
   • MSDN C# Tutorials
   • tutorialspoint
   • CSharp Computing
   • homeandlearn
   • Univ of Linz
   • Jaggersoft

6. Lecture Take-away:

   The most important things covered today were:

   • Thinking critically about the architecture and high level design of a software system. For that we used workflowy and gliffy to develop some ideas for your projects #1 and #2. Of course you will need to expand on this start with more details and some of your own ideas.
   • The UML diagrams - Package and Activity diagrams are the most useful for OCDs.

   Next week, in Wk #3a, we will begin discussing C#, using the resources listed above, so please review this weekend.