Course Objectives

At the completion of the course you should be able to:

1. Describe and employ modern methodologies for managing SW development, specifically Agile and Scrum
2. Use tools and services that support those processes, such as version control, GitHub, continuous integration, etc.
3. Describe and employ SW development principles, patterns and best-practices, such as design patterns, SOLID, test-driven development (TDD), etc.
4. Describe, evaluate and employ technologies for full stack web development and single page web applications (SPAs)
5. Complete a large software development project as part of a team

Class deliverables

There will be four different kinds of deliverables in this class:

Practical exercises: Throughout the semester, there will be a collection of in-class exercises where you will work through examples yourselves. These are very much in the form of tutorials, and are very prescriptive. Our "in-class" time will largely be devoted to working on these. You will turn these in, and they will be scored as "Meets Expectations" (M), "Revision Needed" (R) or "Not Assessable" (N). Practicals earning an R or an N may be revised and resubmitted.

Assignments: In the first half the semester you will complete (approximately) weekly programming assignments. These will be scored as "Exceeds Expectations" (E), "Meets Expectations" (M), "Revision Needed" (R) or "Not Assessable" (N). Assignments earning an R or an N may be revised and resubmitted. As the assignments build upon one another, starting an assignment that contains the solution to the previous one ends the revision period.

Weekly assessments: Every week, we will do a short assessment exercise. These will primarily consist of short answer questions about the material covered up to that point in the class. Each will be marked as belonging to one of the three major topic areas of the class: "skills" (technical implementation, e.g., writing a short function or debugging an implementation), "concepts" (more theoretical questions, e.g., demonstrating knowledge of different patterns, describe pros and cons of different kinds of databases), and "process" (questions about the software development process, e.g., writing user stories, describing the pros and cons of different kinds of testing). These will be scored with a binary "credit"/"no credit".

Project: The focus of this class is the final project. In the second half the semester you will undertake a large software development project as part of team of approximately 8 students (we will probably use the lab sections as divisions). You will need to be in frequent contact with your group and actively contributing as a software developer each week. Your grade for the final project will be determined in part by the overall success of your project, but will mostly be determined by your participation and contributions to the project in both coding and non-coding activities. You will submit regular status reports summarizing your contributions and may also be evaluated by your peers. The details of the scoring will be released separately, but for the purposes of assessment, it will be distilled down to a number between 0 and 3.

Assessment Tiers

In this class, we will be using an approach called specification grading. Rather than translating all of the above into percentages which are then used to assign you some number between 0-100 which is then translated to a letter, we will have a series of "assessment tiers". You are welcome to set your sights on any tier. Since I still need to report a grade, the tier you achieved will determine your grade. If you exceed the expectations of your tier, but don't quite reach the next one, +/- modifiers will be added.

At the Mastery tier (A equivalent), you will demonstrate a firm understanding of all of the aspects of the class and a commitment to the project and the process. To achieve this level, you will fulfill the following requirements:

• Complete all assignments at or above M, with at least two at the E level
• Have no more than 1 practical below the M level
• Earn 15+ assessment points, with at least 5 points in each topic area
• Achieve a project score at or above 2.25

At the Proficiency tier (B equivalent), you will demonstrate a good understanding of most of the aspects of the class and a commitment to the project and the process. To achieve this level, you will fulfill the following requirements:

• Complete all assignments at or above M
• Have no more than 2 practicals below the M level
• Earn 12+ assessment points, with at least 2 points in each topic area
• Achieve a project score at or above 1.75

At the Competency tier (C equivalent), you will demonstrate a fair understanding of most of the aspects of the class and show some commitment to the project and the process. To achieve this level, you will fulfill the following requirements:

• Complete all assignments at or above R, with at least 3 above M
• Have no more than 3 practicals below the M level
• Earn 9+ assessment points, with at least 1 points in each topic area
• Achieve a project score at or above 1.25

At the Familiarity tier (D equivalent), you will demonstrate a fair understanding of some of the aspects of the class and participated to some extent on the project. To achieve this level, you will fulfill the following requirements:

• Complete at least 3 assignments at or above R
• Have no more than 5 practicals below the M level
• Earn 4+ assessment points, with points in at least two topic areas
• Achieve a project score at or above 1

Getting help

We are going to be using Piazza for our class discussions outside of class. Rather than emailing questions to me, please post the questions on Piazza. This will allow other students to answer questions and to benefit from the answers you receive. This system will only work if you use it, so please do so.

Honor code and collaboration

Short version Help each other, but do not share solutions.

Long version In computer science, we build on the work of developers before us. Most of us learned to code by copying code and finding ways to tweak it to do what we want. Almost no computer programs are built without building on the work of others, either in the form of algorithms, libraries, or even just short snippets of code. In the computer science department, we recognize the value of forming study groups, helping each other debug code, and working together.

On the other hand, there are questions of intellectual property and academic integrity. These are considerably murkier waters than you may face, for example, writing a history paper, or doing a problem set in math. With code, you can "accomplish" spectacular things by copying the right chunks of code without ever knowing how it works.

For the most part, navigating these waters is on your head. I encourage you to help classmates to debug misbehaving code. I encourage you to post questions (and answers!) on Piazza. But you need to do so in a way that respects other people's work and in a way that contributes to your intellectual development rather than hindering it (or trying to mask your lack of it). This is not a race to get a good grade. The grade is at best a carrot to "trick" you into doing the work required to become better educated. As such, don't just go looking for code that you can turn in to satisfy an assignment. You can probably find some, but it won't help you much, and I'll probably be able to tell.

Policies: Do not work collaboratively unless indicated by the assignment. You can help one another, and work together, but you cannot work jointly on the same assignment. I do not want to see identical assignments that differ only in the name at the top. If someone does show you code (as an explanation or asking for debugging help), do not copy it. Retain ideas, and go away and write your own version later. Attribute any ideas, etc, that you pick up (this goes for classmates, books, online resources, etc). Be explicit. Tell me where you got the idea, approach, technique, etc. Explain what your contribution was. Make sure that your contribution demonstrates that you understand what was not your work alone. Finally, if you have any doubts, ask me first.

Accommodations for disabilities

Students who need test or classroom accommodations due to a disability must have a Letter of Accommodation from the Disability Resource Center. Please contact one Jodi Litchfield (litchfie@middlebury.edu or 802.443.5936) for more information. Students with Letters of Accommodation are encouraged to make an appointment with me as soon as possible. All discussions will remain confidential.

Loaner Laptops

If you ever find yourself temporarily in need of a laptop, the Computer Science department has 10 rotating Dell laptops available to our students. These come pre-installed with software for most of the courses in the major. They are available to be loaned out short-term or long-term based on your need (as determined by you). Feel free to ask me ahead of time if you think you need one for just a class period, or you can send an e-mail to rlichenstein@middlebury.edu directly.

The college also provides laptops to those who need them where “need” is based on Student Financial Services calculations. If you anticipate needing a laptop for the whole term, we encourage you to inquire with Student Financial Services and the library first due to our smaller pool of equipment. However, our department commits to meeting the needs of every student, so do not be afraid to reach out if you believe you need one of our laptops for any length of time.