All Class announcements will be made here.
SE2: Software Design and Architecture is the second course of the three software engineering capstone project courses, offered jointly by the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo.
Recorded lectures, slides and the the notes will be posted in Learn on Monday and Wednesday by 10 AM (I will strive to upload them even before but if you look into Learn by 10 AM on Mon/Wed you should be able to see them).
Official administrative entry and outline.
Important dates and information will be posted here on this website. The official syllabus is also the contents on this website. You can reach this website from the corresponding entry in learn.uwaterloo.ca.
While the course does not have a required textbook, the following are good readings on this subject.
This term we will be using Learn for class discussion. Rather than emailing questions to the teaching staff, I encourage you to post your questions on Learn.
If you need to ask a question regarding the grades or something personal then please email the instructor. Prefix the subject line with CS446/ECE452/CS646 for a prompt reply.
All TAs will be answering questions mostly only on Learn. If there is a specific need to actually talk to a TA, please email them to get a virtual meeting link that can be used. They have preferred times set up (below). Please try to schedule during these times as much as possible.
The class will use the Learn system for all submissions and grades. Once you are registered, you will be able to access learn and check the dropboxes for submissions and view your grades.
| Date | Topics | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| May 10 | Introduction to the Class, Expectations, Admin | Slides, Video |
| May 12 | Introduction to Software Architecture | Slides, Video |
| May 17 | Intro to building Android apps - Part 1 | Video #1, Video #2, Video #3, Video #4 |
| May 19 | Intro to building Android apps - Part 2 | Video #5, Video #6, Video #7, Video #8 |
| May 24 | Victoria Day. No Class. | |
| May 26 | Non-Functional Properties. | Slides, Video |
| May 30 | Human Values in Software Engineering | Slides, Video |
| June 02 | Project Scheduling | Slides, Video |
| June 7 | UML Intro | Slides, Video |
| June 9 | Architectural views & decomposition | Slides, Video |
| June 14 | Project Proposal Prep. No class. | |
| June 16 | Project Proposal Prep. No class. | |
| June 21 | Arch Styles Intro | Slides, Video |
| June 23 | Arch Styles - Part 1 | Slides, Video |
| June 28 | Arch Styles - Part 2 | See Above. |
| June 30 | Project Prototype Demo Prep. No Class | |
| July 5 | Design Patterns Introduction | Slides, Video |
| July 7 | Design Patterns - Part 1 | Slides, Video |
| July 12 | Design Patterns - Part 2 | Slides, Video |
| July 14 | Design Patterns - Part 3 | Slides, Video |
| July 19 | Release Engineering - Part 1 | Slides, Video |
| July 21 | Release Engineering - Continuous Experimentation | Slides, Video |
| July 26 | Project finalization Prep. No class. | |
| July 28 | Project finalization Prep. No class. | |
| Aug 2 | Civic Holiday | |
| Aug 3 | Evaluate final demo and choose best project | |
| Aug 9 - 16 | Oral Exam Week | |
The project forms an integral part of this course. Here are some of the hard requirements:
The three goals of the project is to
There are only three soft restrictions on the app idea itself: no database management apps will be accepted (e.g., simple CRUD apps that do not make sense in a mobile context); apps that require crowd buy-in are not acceptable (e.g., apps that would require large numbers of people to contribute content to be viably useful); apps that require a complex server infrastructure are also not acceptable. If your app has any of these components, then you are responsible to have the DB or server infrastructure or crowd set up so that you can demo the app and we can test it too.
If after the proposal, we feel that the app idea is too simple or too easy, then we will provide the team with a basic idea. The teams will then have to implement our suggested idea. We highly encourage the teams to come up with their own creative ideas. See below for some great ideas from the past.
Human values: In the proposal, you will detail the functional requirements, non-functional properties, and human values that your app addresses. You will also state who some of your stakeholders are and which population of users that your app is useful for.
Buddy team evaluation: You will receive the proposal of another team. Your goal is to look at the proposal and find out which populations could be harmed and what harm could be created by the features of the app. You are expected to think critically and come up with an exhaustive list. The instructor and TAs will also come up with a list. You are evaluated on how similar you are to our list.
Pivot: The lists of harm that exist in the app created by the instructor team and the buddy team will be shared with the team that proposed the project by the prototype demo stage. When you receive your list, you are expected to make changes in the project so that the harm is mitigated. This change has to be documented by the final demo and written deliverable.
The projects will be completed in teams of six. If it has less than six or more than six, you will need to explicitly get permission from the instructor. You should select your own team; if you do not have a team or your team has less than six members, please post on the appropriate Learn discussion thread.
All project grades taken together (D1, D2, D3, D6, D7) need not be the same for all team members. Each team member will get a score based on effort. Please only commit your personal contribution to the repository. Do not commit for another team member. Commits to the repo are an important signal to us. Additionally, projects will have a difficulty scale applied to them by the instructor and TAs. The scale formula will be:
(total score for the team member across all project deliverables D1, D2, D3, D6, D7 + bonus) * (scale/100) = final project gradeScale will range between 0 and 100. The components of the scaling mark will be determined by:
https://developer.android.com/studio/install
Use the above link to start installing Android Studio in Linux/Win/Mac Machines beforehand. The download size may vary based on the operating system/region and locale ( 800 MB ) for Android Studio alone. Always choose the latest version of Android Studio and corresponding Gradle plugin to build APK files, which helps in reviewing code and evaluation.
SDK Installation: Use the latest Stable Android Version for SDK Compilation rather than the beta version. The preferable version can be from Android M ( API 23 ) to Android R ( API 30 ). As soon as you install the Android Studio, start selecting the preferred android version ( at least 1 ) and download the corresponding emulator, SDK Library, SDK Build Tools, and other utilities. Kindly allocate around 20 GB physical space for Android Studio and SDK Installation and a stable internet connection to complete all the installation setup in advance.
Emulator vs. Android Phone: Kindly use Android Mobile phone for testing by connecting it via USB for debugging, which will have a low impact on system resources while building Android apps. Otherwise, kindly install x86 Google Play/Google API Supported Android emulator for instant access and testing. Do not install ARM or other arch types that are not optimized for cold startup/booting.
Reliable Network Connection: Kindly ensure about reliable network connection for downloading Android Studio and SDK Libraries. Additional data will be required while using third party libraries to build an application or while syncing via Gradle.
A selection of project videos from 2017 are included in this playlist to help you get an idea of the scope of projects suitable for the course.
In total, there will be nine quizzes.
The quizzes are to be completed individually and should take no more than 20 minutes if you have gone through the material. The quizzes will be posted by 10 AM on Thursday (potentially earlier) and will be due by the next day Friday at 5 PM.
There will be no written finals in this course. Instead we will do an oral exam. Details are below:
| Deliverable | Date | Format | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quiz 1 | May 14 | On Learn | 3% |
| Project Team Selection | May 21 | On Learn | No Grade |
| Quiz 2 | May 21 | On Learn | 3% |
| Quiz 3 | May 28 | On Learn | 3% |
| Quiz 4 | June 4 | On Learn | 3% |
| Quiz 5 | June 11 | On Learn | 3% |
| D1: Proposal Document | June 18 | Upload to Learn | 5% |
| Quiz 6 | June 25 | On Learn | 3% |
| D2: Buddy team's evaluation | June 30 (Note: Wed instead of Fri) | Upload to Learn | 3% |
| D3: Prototype Document + Demo | July 9 | Upload to Learn | 10% |
| Quiz 7 | July 9 | On Learn | 3% |
| D4: Architecture Style Examples | July 16 | Upload to Learn | 10% |
| Quiz 8 | July 16 | On Learn | 3% |
| Quiz 9 | July 23 | On Learn | 3% |
| D5: Design Pattern Examples | July 23 | Upload to Learn | 10% |
| D6: Arch + Design Document | Aug 4 (Note this is a Wed) | Upload to Learn | 10% |
| D7: Final Documentation + Video | Aug 6 | Upload to Learn | 5% |
| Oral Exam | Aug 9 - 14 | Virtually | 20% |
For graduate students only: in addition to the project and other assessments above, you will perform an individual graduate project. The graduate project is worth 25% of your grade; your final grade will be calculated by scaling down the above assessments from 100% to 75%.
Three types of graduate projects are possible:
The goal of this style of project is to identify some problem developers encounter in practice, find some solution, and validate that the solution helps with the initial problem. I would recommend drawing upon your experience as you write code to identify some problem that has inhibited you in the past and fix it.
The outcome of this project will be a short (5-6 page) paper describing the problem, your solution, a comparison to related approaches, and some form of validation.
The goal of this kind of project is to gain a more complete understanding of a topic relevant to this course. The outcome of this project will be a critical summary of the state-of-the-art on your selected topic; this summary should be 8-10 pages. It is essential that this summary synthesizes the surveyed literature to identify important themes, findings, and open questions.
The goal of this project is to provide a validation of some previously-existing development tool from the research community. The tool you validate must be related to the course material. The outcome of this project will be a 6-8 page paper describing your experience with the tool outlining its strengths, weaknesses, and avenues for future improvement.
There are two deliverables for the graduate project:
The Faculty of Math encourages students to seek out mental health support if needed. On-campus Resources: