67717 – Reading Course on Software Development

Reading Course on Software Development (67717)

2011 – Methods, Tools, and Best Practices

Thursday at 2-4, Shprinzak 116.

This course will be based on a combination of lectures, discussions, and presentations by students.

The course requirements are

Make a short presentation based on a paper that you read (31%).
Write short reports about 3 more papers (10% each, 30% total).
Participate in all meetings (3% each, 39% total). If you miss one that's still OK, and the reports will count as 11% each.

Presentations are typically allocated 20 minutes. Make sure you emphasize the main ideas in the paper, and what we learn from it. Use the following question as a guideline: why did I choose to include this paper in the seminar? The grade for the presentation is composed of 8% quality of slides (organization and support of the presentation, not flashiness), 8% quality of presentation (including keeping time), and 15% coverage of the material.

The reports should include the following:

Full citation of the paper (see format used below).
Your name and ID.
Your summary of what the paper contributes to our knowledge. Note that this is not a synopsis of what they did, but rather your understanding of what is the meaning of what they did, and why it is important. In particular, don't copy the abstract — write your own abstract instead!

Length is strictly limited to half a page of text. Please submit in PDF (not word), or a plain ASCII file.

Note: this course does not fulfill the requirement for a seminar for MSc students.

Topics and papers we hope to cover are the following. Papers that are well worth a read even if not assigned to you are marked with a *.

17 Feb 2011
What Is Software Engineering
Mary Shaw, Prospects for an engineering discipline of software. IEEE Software 7(6) pp. 15-24, Nov.-Dec. 1990.
Philippe Kruchten, Putting the “engineering” into “software engineering”. Australian Softw. Eng. Conf., pp. 2-8, 2004.
David L. Parnas, Risks of undisciplined development. Comm. ACM 53(10) pp. 25-27, Oct 2010.
Melody M. Moore, A license to practice software engineering. IEEE Software 20(3), pp. 112-113, May/June 2003.
Discussion: software engineering vs. programming. Types of software development. (slides)
24 Feb 2011
Background: Lifecycle Models
Winston W. Royce, Managing the development of large software systems. Proc. IEEE WESCON, Aug 1970.
Presenter: Itay Fayerverker (slides)
Tom Gilb, Principles of Software Engineering Management, Addison Wesley, 1988. (Chapter on evolutionary delivery).
Presenter: Ayelet Blanc (slides)
Jack W. Reeves, Code as design: three essays. C++ Journal 1992 and Developer.* 2005.
Discussion: from sequential to iterative lifecycles. (slides)
3 Mar 2011
Software Reliability
* David Lorge Parnas, Software aspects of strategic defense systems. Comm. ACM 28(12), pp. 1326-1335, Dec 1985.
Presenter: Miri Cohen
Norman F. Schneidewind and Ted W. Keller, Applying reliability models to the space shuttle. IEEE Softw. 9(4) pp. 28-33, Jul/Aug 1992.
Presenter: Barak Nagar (slides)
LONG BREAK between talks
Nancy G. Leveson and Clark S. Turner, An investigation of the Therac-25 accidents. Computer 26(7), pp. 18-41, Jul 1993.
Presenter: Dror (slides)

10 Mar 2011 J.H. Poore, Harlan D. Mills, David Mutchler, Planning and certifying software system reliability. IEEE Software 10(1), pp. 88-99, Jan/Feb 1993.
Presenter: Saed Bhiri
Daniel Jackson, A direct path to dependable software. Comm. ACM 52(4), pp. 78-88, Apr 2009.
Presenter: Maayan Negbi
K. Koscher, A. Czeskis, F. Roesner, S. Patel, T. Kohno, S. Checkoway, D. McCoy, B. Kantor, D. Anderson, H. Shacham, and S. Savage, Experimental security analysis of a modern automobile. In IEEE Symp. Security and Privacy, pp. 447-462, May 2010.
Presenter: Alex Puschinsky
REPORT Ken Thompson, Reflections on trusting trust. Comm. ACM 27(8), pp. 761-763, Aug 1984. Submit via Moodle
Discussion: success, reliability, and security
17 Mar 2011
Requirements Engineering
Daniel M. Berry, The importance of ignorance in requirements engineering. J. Systems & Software 28(2), pp. 179-184, Feb 1995.
Presenter: Omer Brookstein (slides)
* Tom Gilb, What's wrong with requirements specification? An analysis of the fundamental failings of conventional thinking about software requirements, and some suggestions for getting it right. J. Softw. Engineering & Apps. 3(9) pp. 827-838 Sep 2010.
Presenter: Lior Ebel (slides)
Colin J. Neilland Phillip A. Laplante, Requirements engineering: the state of the practice. IEEE Software 20(6), pp. 40-45, Nov-Dec 2003.
Presenter: Dror (slides)
Discussion: self-use and for-hire projects
24 Mar 2011 Martin Fowler, UML Distilled, Addison Wesley, 2000. [Chapters 3, 5, 8]
Presenter: Ahmad Jbara
Alistair Cockburn, Use cases, ten years later, 2002.
Basic use case template, 1998.
Presenter: Yuval Gil
Philippe Kruchten, The 4+1 view model of architecture. IEEE Software 12(6) pp. 42-50, November 1995.
Presenter: Tomer Weller
Stephen R. Schach, Object-Oriented and Classical Software Engineering. McGraw-Hill, 6th ed., 2005. (Osbert Oglesby case study, especially requirements and analysis – slides)
Discussion: Understanding user requirements
31 Mar 2011
Formal Methods
* R.A. DeMillo, R.J. Lipton, and A. Perlis, Social processes and proofs of theorems and programs. Comm. ACM 22(5), pp. 271-280, May 1979.
Presenter: Nissim Avitan
J.H. Fetzer, Program verification: the very idea. Comm. ACM 31(9), pp. 1048-1063, Sep 1988.
Presenter: Michael Zakai
J.A. Hall, Seven myths of formal methods. IEEE Software 7(5), pp. 11-19, Sep 1990.
J.P. Bowen and M.G. Hinchey, Seven more myths of formal methods. IEEE Software 12(4), pp. 34-41, Jul 1995.
Presenter: Roy Sheaffer (slides)
Daniel M. Berry Formal methods: the very idea: Some thoughts about why they work when they work. Science of Computer Programming 42(1) pp. 11-27, Jan 2002.
Presenter: Moneer Omar
REPORT David Harel, On visual formalisms. Comm. ACM 31(5) pp. 514-530 May 1988. Submit via Moodle

7 Apr 2011 * H.D. Mills, M. Dyer, R.C. Linger, Cleanroom Software Engineering. IEEE Software 4(5), pp. 19-25, Sep 1987.
Presenter: Yechiel Weill
B. Nuseibeh, C. B. Haley, and C. Foster, Securing the skies: in requirements we trust. Computer 42(9), pp. 64-72, Sep 2009.
Presenter: Or Shachar (slides)
J.P. Bowen and M.G. Hinchey, Ten commandments of formal methods. IEEEComputer 28(4) pp. 56-63, Apr 1995.
J.P. Bowen and M.G. Hinchey, Ten commandments of formal methods ... ten years later. IEEE Computer 39(1), pp. 40-48, Jan 2006.
Presenter: David Yona
David Lorge Parnas, Really rethinking 'formal methods'. Computer 43(1) pp. 28-34, Jan 2010.
Discussion: where are formal methods? (slides)

5 May 2011
Standards
Martyn Thomas, Unsafe Standardization. IEEE Computer 40(11), pp. 109-111, Nov 1997.
Simone Santini, Standards: What are they Good For? IEEE Computer 39(12), pp. 140-139, Dec 2006.
Presenter: Shani Shanon
Ho-Won Jung, Seung-Gweon Kim, and Chang-Sin Chung, Measuring software product quality: A survey of ISO/IEC 9126. IEEE Software 21(5) pp. 10-13, Sep/Oct 2004.
Hiyam Al-Kilidar, Karl Cox, and Barbara Kitchenham, The use and usefulness of the ISO/IEC 9126 Quality Standard. Proc. Intl. Symp Empirical Software Engineering, pp. 126-132, Nov 2005.
Presenter: Maayan Zadik
Michi Henning, API design matters. Comm ACM 52(5), pp. 46-56, May 2009.
Presenter: Denis Burakov (slides)
Discussion: what and how to standardize (slides)
12 May 2011
Metrics
Linda Westfall, 12 Steps to Useful Software Metrics. 2005.
Presenter: Sivan Gamlieli
Barbara Kitchenham, David Ross Jeffery, and Colin Connaughton, Misleading metrics and unsound analyses. IEEE Software 24(2), pp. 73-78, Mar-Apr 2007.
Presenter: Gil Hartman (slides)
Katrina D. Maxwell and Pekka Forselius, Benchmarking software development productivity. IEEE Software 17(1), pp. 80-88, Jan-Feb 2000.
Presenter: Emily Elbaz
Discussion: why and how to measure software (slides)

19 May 2011
Agile Methods, Software Evolution, and Open Source
* Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
Kent Beck, Extreme programming explained: embrace change. Addison-Wesley, 1999.
Balasubramaniam Ramesh, Lan Cao, and Richard Baskerville, Agile requirements engineering practices and challenges: an empirical study. Inf. Syst. J. 20(5), pp. 449-480, Sep 2010.
Presenter: Tomer Loterman
Laurie A. Williams and Robert R. Kessler, All I really need to know about pair programming I learned in kindergarten. Comm. ACM 43(5), pp. 108-114, May 2000.
Presenter: Meir Wahnon
T. Dyba, E. Arisholm, D.I.K. Sjoberg, J.E. Hannay, and F. Shull, Are two heads better than one? On the effectiveness of pair programming. IEEE Software 24(6), pp. 12-15, Nov-Dec 2007.
Presenter: Yair Poleg (slides)
Robert C. Martin, Professionalism and test-driven development. IEEE Software 24(3), pp. 32-36, May-Jun 2007.
Presenter: Achia Shaag

26 May 2011 Godfrey and Tu, Evolution in open source software: a case study. Intl. Conference on Software Maintenance, Oct 2000.
Presenter: David Kranzdorf
Mark Mahoney, Software Evolution and the Moving Picture Metaphor. Onward! at OOPSLA 2009.
Presenter: Afief Halumi (slides)
V. T. Rajlich and K. H. Bennett, A staged model for the software life cycle. Computer 33(7), pp. 66--71, Jul 2000.
Presenter: Dmitri Gluzman
Denning, Gunderson, and Hayes-Roth, Evolutionary system development. Comm. ACM 51(12), Dec 2008.
REPORT Eric S. Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar. 2000. Submit via Moodle
(note that this is a LONG essay -- read all of it, not just the first page)
Alistair Cockburn, What is a process good for?, 2007.
Discussion: agile and perpetual development (slides)

2 Jun 2011
Software Engineering Research
Victor R. Basili and Marvin V. Zelkowitz, Empirical studies to build a science of computer science. Comm. ACM 50(11), pp. 33-37, Nov 2007.
Presenter: Arie Shterngertz (slides)
Leon J. Osterweil, Carlo Ghezzi, Jeff Kramer, and Alexander L. Wolf, Determining the Impact of Software Engineering Research on Practice. Computer 41(3), pp. 39-49, Mar 2008.
Presenter: Ilan Goldschmidt
Dieter Rombach, Marcus Ciolkowski, Ross Jeffery, Oliver Laitenberger, Frank McGarry, and Forrest Shull, Impact of research on practice in the field of inspections, reviews, and walkthroughs: learning from successful industrial uses. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes 33(6), Nov 2008.
Presenter: Pnina Alfiya
Victor R. Basili and Robert W. Reiter, Jr., A controlled experiment quantitatively comparing software development approaches. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. SE-7(3), pp. 299-320, May 1981.
Robert L. Glass, Revisiting the industry/academe communication chasm. Comm. ACM 40(6), pp. 11-12, Jun 1997.
Discussion: the role of academia (slides)

17 Feb 2011	What Is Software Engineering Mary Shaw, Prospects for an engineering discipline of software. IEEE Software 7(6) pp. 15-24, Nov.-Dec. 1990. Philippe Kruchten, Putting the “engineering” into “software engineering”. Australian Softw. Eng. Conf., pp. 2-8, 2004. David L. Parnas, Risks of undisciplined development. Comm. ACM 53(10) pp. 25-27, Oct 2010. Melody M. Moore, A license to practice software engineering. IEEE Software 20(3), pp. 112-113, May/June 2003. Discussion: software engineering vs. programming. Types of software development. (slides)
24 Feb 2011	Background: Lifecycle Models Winston W. Royce, Managing the development of large software systems. Proc. IEEE WESCON, Aug 1970. Presenter: Itay Fayerverker (slides) Tom Gilb, Principles of Software Engineering Management, Addison Wesley, 1988. (Chapter on evolutionary delivery). Presenter: Ayelet Blanc (slides) Jack W. Reeves, Code as design: three essays. C++ Journal 1992 and Developer.* 2005. Discussion: from sequential to iterative lifecycles. (slides)
3 Mar 2011	Software Reliability * David Lorge Parnas, Software aspects of strategic defense systems. Comm. ACM 28(12), pp. 1326-1335, Dec 1985. Presenter: Miri Cohen Norman F. Schneidewind and Ted W. Keller, Applying reliability models to the space shuttle. IEEE Softw. 9(4) pp. 28-33, Jul/Aug 1992. Presenter: Barak Nagar (slides) LONG BREAK between talks Nancy G. Leveson and Clark S. Turner, An investigation of the Therac-25 accidents. Computer 26(7), pp. 18-41, Jul 1993. Presenter: Dror (slides)
10 Mar 2011	J.H. Poore, Harlan D. Mills, David Mutchler, Planning and certifying software system reliability. IEEE Software 10(1), pp. 88-99, Jan/Feb 1993. Presenter: Saed Bhiri Daniel Jackson, A direct path to dependable software. Comm. ACM 52(4), pp. 78-88, Apr 2009. Presenter: Maayan Negbi K. Koscher, A. Czeskis, F. Roesner, S. Patel, T. Kohno, S. Checkoway, D. McCoy, B. Kantor, D. Anderson, H. Shacham, and S. Savage, Experimental security analysis of a modern automobile. In IEEE Symp. Security and Privacy, pp. 447-462, May 2010. Presenter: Alex Puschinsky REPORT Ken Thompson, Reflections on trusting trust. Comm. ACM 27(8), pp. 761-763, Aug 1984. Submit via Moodle Discussion: success, reliability, and security
17 Mar 2011	Requirements Engineering Daniel M. Berry, The importance of ignorance in requirements engineering. J. Systems & Software 28(2), pp. 179-184, Feb 1995. Presenter: Omer Brookstein (slides) * Tom Gilb, What's wrong with requirements specification? An analysis of the fundamental failings of conventional thinking about software requirements, and some suggestions for getting it right. J. Softw. Engineering & Apps. 3(9) pp. 827-838 Sep 2010. Presenter: Lior Ebel (slides) Colin J. Neilland Phillip A. Laplante, Requirements engineering: the state of the practice. IEEE Software 20(6), pp. 40-45, Nov-Dec 2003. Presenter: Dror (slides) Discussion: self-use and for-hire projects
24 Mar 2011	Martin Fowler, UML Distilled, Addison Wesley, 2000. [Chapters 3, 5, 8] Presenter: Ahmad Jbara Alistair Cockburn, Use cases, ten years later, 2002. Basic use case template, 1998. Presenter: Yuval Gil Philippe Kruchten, The 4+1 view model of architecture. IEEE Software 12(6) pp. 42-50, November 1995. Presenter: Tomer Weller Stephen R. Schach, Object-Oriented and Classical Software Engineering. McGraw-Hill, 6th ed., 2005. (Osbert Oglesby case study, especially requirements and analysis – slides) Discussion: Understanding user requirements
31 Mar 2011	Formal Methods * R.A. DeMillo, R.J. Lipton, and A. Perlis, Social processes and proofs of theorems and programs. Comm. ACM 22(5), pp. 271-280, May 1979. Presenter: Nissim Avitan J.H. Fetzer, Program verification: the very idea. Comm. ACM 31(9), pp. 1048-1063, Sep 1988. Presenter: Michael Zakai J.A. Hall, Seven myths of formal methods. IEEE Software 7(5), pp. 11-19, Sep 1990. J.P. Bowen and M.G. Hinchey, Seven more myths of formal methods. IEEE Software 12(4), pp. 34-41, Jul 1995. Presenter: Roy Sheaffer (slides) Daniel M. Berry Formal methods: the very idea: Some thoughts about why they work when they work. Science of Computer Programming 42(1) pp. 11-27, Jan 2002. Presenter: Moneer Omar REPORT David Harel, On visual formalisms. Comm. ACM 31(5) pp. 514-530 May 1988. Submit via Moodle
7 Apr 2011	* H.D. Mills, M. Dyer, R.C. Linger, Cleanroom Software Engineering. IEEE Software 4(5), pp. 19-25, Sep 1987. Presenter: Yechiel Weill B. Nuseibeh, C. B. Haley, and C. Foster, Securing the skies: in requirements we trust. Computer 42(9), pp. 64-72, Sep 2009. Presenter: Or Shachar (slides) J.P. Bowen and M.G. Hinchey, Ten commandments of formal methods. IEEEComputer 28(4) pp. 56-63, Apr 1995. J.P. Bowen and M.G. Hinchey, Ten commandments of formal methods ... ten years later. IEEE Computer 39(1), pp. 40-48, Jan 2006. Presenter: David Yona David Lorge Parnas, Really rethinking 'formal methods'. Computer 43(1) pp. 28-34, Jan 2010. Discussion: where are formal methods? (slides)
5 May 2011	Standards Martyn Thomas, Unsafe Standardization. IEEE Computer 40(11), pp. 109-111, Nov 1997. Simone Santini, Standards: What are they Good For? IEEE Computer 39(12), pp. 140-139, Dec 2006. Presenter: Shani Shanon Ho-Won Jung, Seung-Gweon Kim, and Chang-Sin Chung, Measuring software product quality: A survey of ISO/IEC 9126. IEEE Software 21(5) pp. 10-13, Sep/Oct 2004. Hiyam Al-Kilidar, Karl Cox, and Barbara Kitchenham, The use and usefulness of the ISO/IEC 9126 Quality Standard. Proc. Intl. Symp Empirical Software Engineering, pp. 126-132, Nov 2005. Presenter: Maayan Zadik Michi Henning, API design matters. Comm ACM 52(5), pp. 46-56, May 2009. Presenter: Denis Burakov (slides) Discussion: what and how to standardize (slides)
12 May 2011	Metrics Linda Westfall, 12 Steps to Useful Software Metrics. 2005. Presenter: Sivan Gamlieli Barbara Kitchenham, David Ross Jeffery, and Colin Connaughton, Misleading metrics and unsound analyses. IEEE Software 24(2), pp. 73-78, Mar-Apr 2007. Presenter: Gil Hartman (slides) Katrina D. Maxwell and Pekka Forselius, Benchmarking software development productivity. IEEE Software 17(1), pp. 80-88, Jan-Feb 2000. Presenter: Emily Elbaz Discussion: why and how to measure software (slides)
19 May 2011	Agile Methods, Software Evolution, and Open Source * Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Kent Beck, Extreme programming explained: embrace change. Addison-Wesley, 1999. Balasubramaniam Ramesh, Lan Cao, and Richard Baskerville, Agile requirements engineering practices and challenges: an empirical study. Inf. Syst. J. 20(5), pp. 449-480, Sep 2010. Presenter: Tomer Loterman Laurie A. Williams and Robert R. Kessler, All I really need to know about pair programming I learned in kindergarten. Comm. ACM 43(5), pp. 108-114, May 2000. Presenter: Meir Wahnon T. Dyba, E. Arisholm, D.I.K. Sjoberg, J.E. Hannay, and F. Shull, Are two heads better than one? On the effectiveness of pair programming. IEEE Software 24(6), pp. 12-15, Nov-Dec 2007. Presenter: Yair Poleg (slides) Robert C. Martin, Professionalism and test-driven development. IEEE Software 24(3), pp. 32-36, May-Jun 2007. Presenter: Achia Shaag
26 May 2011	Godfrey and Tu, Evolution in open source software: a case study. Intl. Conference on Software Maintenance, Oct 2000. Presenter: David Kranzdorf Mark Mahoney, Software Evolution and the Moving Picture Metaphor. Onward! at OOPSLA 2009. Presenter: Afief Halumi (slides) V. T. Rajlich and K. H. Bennett, A staged model for the software life cycle. Computer 33(7), pp. 66--71, Jul 2000. Presenter: Dmitri Gluzman Denning, Gunderson, and Hayes-Roth, Evolutionary system development. Comm. ACM 51(12), Dec 2008. REPORT Eric S. Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar. 2000. Submit via Moodle (note that this is a LONG essay -- read all of it, not just the first page) Alistair Cockburn, What is a process good for?, 2007. Discussion: agile and perpetual development (slides)
2 Jun 2011	Software Engineering Research Victor R. Basili and Marvin V. Zelkowitz, Empirical studies to build a science of computer science. Comm. ACM 50(11), pp. 33-37, Nov 2007. Presenter: Arie Shterngertz (slides) Leon J. Osterweil, Carlo Ghezzi, Jeff Kramer, and Alexander L. Wolf, Determining the Impact of Software Engineering Research on Practice. Computer 41(3), pp. 39-49, Mar 2008. Presenter: Ilan Goldschmidt Dieter Rombach, Marcus Ciolkowski, Ross Jeffery, Oliver Laitenberger, Frank McGarry, and Forrest Shull, Impact of research on practice in the field of inspections, reviews, and walkthroughs: learning from successful industrial uses. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes 33(6), Nov 2008. Presenter: Pnina Alfiya Victor R. Basili and Robert W. Reiter, Jr., A controlled experiment quantitatively comparing software development approaches. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. SE-7(3), pp. 299-320, May 1981. Robert L. Glass, Revisiting the industry/academe communication chasm. Comm. ACM 40(6), pp. 11-12, Jun 1997. Discussion: the role of academia (slides)