On Building Software

CS 300 Lecture 1.2

Bart Massey 2013-10-03

Overview

• Misc notes
• How software is built
• "Version Control" with Git

Misc Notes

• The first assignment is up. Questions are welcome.

• Today's CSOD is http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Toggle-that-Wouldnt.aspx.

How Software Is Built

• Engineering is a four-step process:

  • What are you going to build? (requirements)
  • How are you going to build it? (design)
  • Build it (implementation)
  • Is it built right? (validation and verification)

• Development is

  • Incremental (build successively more of the project
  • Iterative (may have to revisit the four steps a lot)

• V&V plan should be known at start of project

  • Testing
  • Inspection
  • Formal Methods

• Failure to do requirements properly is biggest failure mode.

Version Control With Git

(In-class Git tutorial. Transcript will be placed on the Moodle later.)

Programming Languages and Paradigms

• Some language categories

  • Traditional / imperative
  • Object-Oriented
  • Functional and Logic
  • Domain-Specific Languages

• Languages are usually chosen for weird reasons

• Language doesn't matter so much

Scheduling a Project

• Useful even for an individual project

• Basic principle: very fine-grained scheduling

  • Forces paying attention to / exposing details
  • Central Limit Theorem gives convergence here
  • Constant feedback on progress
  • The "instant-endorphin" thing

• Practice consciously: everyone is terrible at this