Informatics 217 Winter 2011

Informatics 217: Software Processes

Winter Quarter 2010

Instructor:	Susan Elliott Sim
Email:	To ensure a response to your email, please include "Inf217" in the subject line and send your email from a UCI account.
Office hours:	DBH 5226 Drop In Hours: Wednesdays at 11am Other times by Appointment
Lectures:	Friday 12:00-2:50pm, DBH 1425
Web site:	http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ses/teaching/inf217/
EEE MessageBoard:	https://eee.uci.edu/toolbox/messageboard/m10792/

Description - Schedule - Grading - Materials - Policies

Description

Catalog description:
Explores vehicles for modeling, coding, and analyzing software processes. Considers integration of software process programming approaches with traditional management issues. Explores the use of software process execution as a vehicle for effective integration of tools into environments.

Description of this installment of 217:
We will be investigating the tension between formal, controlled software processes and the processes enacted by people to develop software. We will be reading classic papers and texts during the early part of the course, but the majority of the time will be devoted to a research project to be undertaken by the students in groups of two.

Textbooks

The majority of the readings in the course will be papers available through the IEEE or ACM Digital Libraries. In addition to these works, we will be reading two books.

Beck, Kent, Extreme Programming Explained: Addison-Wesley, 1999.
Humphrey, W. S., A Discipline for Software Engineering: Addison-Wesley, 1995.

Schedule

Week	Date	Topic
1	January 7	Introduction Alfonso Fuggetta, "Software Process: A Roadmap," in The Future of Software Engineering, Anthony Finkelstein, Ed.: ACM, pp. 27-34, 2000. Frederick P. Brooks. "No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accident in Software Engineering." IEEE Computer, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 10-19, April 1987. Lecture Slides
2	January 14	Hybrid Source Software Development Required Readings Susan Elliott Sim, Medha Umarji, Sukanya Ratanotayanon, and Cristina V. Lopes. 2012. "How Well do Search Engines Support Code Retrieval on the Web?" ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology. Medha Umarji, Susan Elliott Sim, and Cristina V. Lopes. 2008. "Archetypal Internet-Scale Source Code Searching" 4th International Conference on Open Source Systems, 8-10 September 2008, at Milan, Italy. [Long version] Rosalva E. Gallardo-Valenica. 2010. "Source Code Seeking on the Web."
3	January 21	Modeling vs. Enactment Resolution: Be it resolved that process programming cannot succeed because it is not possible to build a complete model. Required Readings Leon J. Osterweil, "Software Processes are Software Too," presented at Ninth International Conference on Software Engineering, Monterey, CA, pp. 2-13, 30 March-2 April 1997. Meir M. Lehman and Juan F. Ramil, "Software Evolution: Background, Theory, Practice," Information Processing Letters, vol. 88, no. 1-2, pp. 33-44, October, 2003. Optional Readings Leon J. Osterweil, "Software Processes are Software Too: Revisited; An Invited Talk on the Most Influential Paper of ICSE 9," presented at Nineteenth International Conference on Software Engineering, Boston, MA, pp. 540-548, 17-23 May 1997. M. M. Lehman, "Process Modelling- Where Next," presented at Nineteenth International Conference on Software Engineering, Boston, MA, pp. 549-552, 17-23 May 1997. Debaters Government: Raminder and Arjun Opposition: Nilmax and Aman Interview Questions
4	January 28	Culture vs. Tools Resolution: Be it resolved that the coordination component of workflow is incompatible with social models used in the workplace. Required Readings Gary J. Nutt, "The Evolution Towards Flexible Workflow Systems," Distributed Systems Engineering, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 276-294, December, 1996. Yrjö Engeström, "When is a Tool? Multiple Meanings of Artifacts in Human Activity," in Learning, Working and Imagining: Twelve Studies in Activity Theory, Painettu Kirjapaino, Oma Kyssä, and Jyväskylässä, Eds.: Orienta-Konsultit Oy, pp. 171-195, 1990. Optional Readings Gregory Alan Bolcer and Richard N. Taylor, "Advanced Workflow Management Technologies," Software Process - Improvement and Practice, vol. 4, pp. 125-171, 1999. Debaters Government: Nilmax and Kita Opposition: Arthur and Arjun Site Description due
5	February 4	Control vs. Agility Resolution: Be it resolved that software process must be controlled quantitatively to ensure that projects are completed predictably and reliably. Required Readings Beck, Kent, Extreme Programming Explained: Addison-Wesley, 1999. Humphrey, W. S., A Discipline for Software Engineering: Addison-Wesley, 1995. Debaters Government: Arthur and Kita Opposition: Aman and Raminder
6	February 11	Empiricism vs. Invention Resolution: Be it resolved that field studies of software engineers do not produce results that researchers can use when creating next generation tools and methods. Required Readings Bill Curtis, Herb Krasner, and Neil Iscoe, "A Field Study of the Software Design Process for Large Systems," Communications of the ACM, vol. 31, no. 11, pp. 1268-1287, November, 1988. Dewayne E. Perry, Nancy A. Staudenmeyer, and Jr. Votta. Lawrence G., "Understanding and Improving Time Usage in Software Development," in Software Process, Trends in Software, Alfonso Fuggetta and Alexander Wolf, Eds.: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 111-135, 1996. Debaters Government: Arthur, Aman, and Arjun Opposition: Kita, Raminder, and Nilmax Methods and Research Questions due
7	February 18	Susan Away- No class
8	February 25	Projects and Discussion Preliminary Results due
9	March 4	Projects and Discussion Discussion due
10	March 11	Project Presentations
11	March 18	Projects due

Grading and Evaluations

Grading.
Term Project 70%
Debate 20%
Participation 10%

Term Project.
The term project for this course will consist of original research on a topic software process. The project will be undertaken in teams of two. A report describing the research is due at the last meeting of the course. The project will consist of a field study of industrial software process.
The final report is due Friday, March 18, 2011. Sections of the report will be due at various points in the quarter.

Debate.
During the early portion of the course, we will be pairs of papers that present opposing views of software process. Discussion of these papers will begin with a debate. The debate will consist of four students, two in favor and two against a resolution, using a parliamentary debate format.

Participation.
Participation in the course will be evaluated in two ways. 1) Participation during class time. This includes attendance, active listening, and contributing to the discussion. 2) Students are required to make one post each week on the course MessageBoard. This post must be made before 9am on the day of class. During the weeks when there will be a debate, students not involved in the debate are expected to post their position The position must be substantiated by an argument. During the weeks when we will be discussing research projects, the post should be related to the project-- a progress report, a question or problem, a refinement of a previous idea or method, etc.

Policies

Cheating. The UCI academic honesty policy applies. Consequences of cheating in this class: A letter in your UCI file, and the course grade is lowered, possibly to F. Material that is copied from books or Web pages needs to be quoted and the source must be given.

Disabilities. If you need an accommodation because of a disability, please contact the instructor and the Disability Services Center as soon as possible.

(C) University of California, 2005.