Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Objectives At the completion of this subject students will know the concept behind the term `software engineering' and understand the application of software engineering principles to large-scale programming problems; know the object-oriented paradigm and understand its application in the software engineering environment; and appreciate how to implement an interactive, commercially oriented system using an object-oriented programming language.
Synopsis An introduction to software engineering, overview of paradigms and problems. Software design fundamentals. Design of object-oriented software: objects and classes, rules for object definition, attribute definition, operation definition, object communication, object-oriented models, inheritance. Software metrics: size and function-oriented metrics, integrating metrics into the software engineering approach. Software estimation: approaches, decomposition, empirical models, automated tools. Programming for software re-use: software development for re-use, software development with re-use, application system portability. Software quality assurance: need for quality, activities, factors affecting quality, formal reviews, quality metrics, reliability. Software testing techniques: fundamentals, white box, black box, basis path, equivalence partitioning. Software testing strategies: strategic approach, verification and validation, strategies including unit, integration, validation and system testing. Software debugging: general approaches, common errors. Software maintenance: definitions, characteristics, tasks, side effects, reverse engineering and re-engineering. Software configuration management. Computer aided software engineering: CASE tools, integrated CASE environments.
Assessment Examination: 50% + Unit test: 10% + Practical work: 40%