Description

Whereas many software engineering courses focus on building new systems from scratch, in industrial practice software developers are often confronted with already existing software systems that need to be maintained, reused, or evolved. This requires specific skills to understand the design and implementation of an existing system and which parts need to be modified, to build software systems that are easier to maintain, and to design systems with reuse and evolution in mind from the very start. This course will thus study a variety of techniques, tools and methodologies to help building software systems that are easier to understand, maintain, reuse and evolve.

Program

Software Engineering 144 CRs

Objectives

• Students completing successfully this course will be able to:
  1. Understand the difficulties of developing code in a change context as opposed to 'green field' development.
  2. Assess the impact of a change request to an existing product of medium size.
  3. Describe techniques, coding idioms and other mechanisms for implementing designs that are more maintainable.
  4. Understand how design patterns can improve the design of a software system.
  5. Refactor an existing software implementation to improve some aspect of its design.
  6. Identify the principal issues associated with software evolution and explain their impact on the software lifecycle.'
  7. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different types of software reuse.