Course Syllabus

CS 212-01 Software Development
Semester: Spring 2014
Lectures: Mon, Wed, Fri 3:30pm – 4:35pm
Location: Harney Science Center • Room 235

This course gives students experience designing, implementing, testing, and debugging large programs. Students will also get advanced Java programming experience; covering topics such as inheritance, multithreading, networking, database programming, and web development.

Instructor

Please contact the instructor if you have any questions or concerns regarding the course or projects.

Professor Sophie Engle
Web: http://sjengle.cs.usfca.edu/
Email: sjengle@cs.usfca.edu
Office: Harney Science Center
5th Floor, Room 531/532
Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays
1:30pm to 3:00pm

If you are unable to make these office hours, please contact the instructor to setup an appointment.

Teacher Assistants

Please contact the teacher assistant for all homework-related matters.

Eric Fulton
Email: emfulton@dons.usfca.edu
Room: Harney Science Center
5th Floor, Room 530/535
Hours:

Tuesdays and Thursdays
2:40pm to 3:40pm

Mondays and Wednesdays
2:15pm to 3:15pm

You may also visit the CS Tutoring Center for help with this course.

Course Prerequisites

You must have completed CS 112 Introduction to Computer Science II with a grade of C or better. You may NOT take CS 112 and CS 212 concurrently.

Course Materials

There are no required books for this class. However, it is recommended that students have a Java reference book. Please see the instructor for recommendations.

Course Announcements

Announcements will be posted on the course website in Canvas at:

https://usfca.instructure.com/courses/1215994/announcements

Students may subscribe to these announcements via the RSS feed, or receive announcement notifications via Facebook or via Twitter. Students are responsible for staying current on all course announcements.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course, students should be able to:

  • Independently design programs
  • Produce professional-quality code
  • Implement large programs of greater than 2.5k lines of code
  • Design and execute tests to identify software bugs
  • Repair software bugs, redesigning and refactoring code when necessary
  • Utilize, analyze, and critique code written by others

Assessment of these outcomes will be done by a combination of quizzes, exams, homework, projects, and code review.

Topics

The following is an estimated list of topics and weekly schedule. Check the course website for the latest schedule.

Week Topic
Week 01:  Course Introduction
Week 02:  File IO, Exception Handling
Week 03:  Data Structures, Iteration, Object-Oriented Programming
Week 04:  Inheritance, Interfaces
Week 05:  Debugging, Logging
Week 06:  Multithreading Basics
Week 07:  MIDTERM EXAM
Week 08:  Spring Break – No Classes
Week 09:  Advanced Multithreading
Week 10:  Regular Expressions, Unit Testing
Week 11:  Web, Sockets, HTML, HTTP
Week 12:  Servlets, Jetty, Cookies, Sessions
Week 13:  Databases, SQL, and JDBC
Week 14:  FINAL EXAM
Week 15:  Comprehensive Example
Week 16:  Special Topics
Finals:  Final Project Interactive Grading

Interactive grading for the final project will be held during finals week. Exact dates and times will be posted towards the end of the semester.

Course Requirements

This course will be a hybrid flipped classroom, with an emphasis on mastery learning. Videos, to be watched outside of class, will replace some lectures. Class time will instead be used for exercises, quizzes, and completing homework. The benefit of this approach are re-watchable video lectures, and more time working on problems while the instructor is present to help. See below for details.

You are expected to spend between 15 to 20 hours per week minimum outside of class. Seriously, this class is like a part time job!

Homework

A combination of homework exercises will be assigned in class. You will be given class time to work on these exercises, and will be able to get help completing the exercises from the instructor. If you do not finish these exercises in class, you will need to complete them on your own time.

Quizzes

Quizzes will occasionally be given at the start of class to verify students are watching the assigned videos. Students will be given a fixed amount of time at the start of class to complete the quiz, and the quizzes must be completed in class (not from home).

Projects

Project assignments place an emphasis on code quality—it is not enough to achieve correct results. Each project will undergo a rigorous code review checking for specific criteria, such as proper encapsulation and generalization, efficiency, and maintainability. You may not move on to the next project until (a) the project produces correct output, and (b) the project passes the code review process.

As such, the project grade will depend on the number of projects completed by each student. The exact grade for each project depends on the submission process. Each student receives one opportunity per project to fix and resubmit the project. Additional resubmissions will result in a point deduction.

Additional details on each project and the project submission process will be posted on the course website.

Exams

There will be two exams: a midterm and final exam. The final exam is not comprehensive, and will be held during the last week of class.

Finals week will be reserved for interactive project grading. A signup sheet will be posted towards the end of the semester. If you have travel plans during finals week, please confirm your travel dates first with the instructor.

Grade Breakdown

The final grade for this course will depend on a mix of homework, quizzes, projects, and exams. The specific breakdown is as follows:

70%   Projects
15%   Exams
15%   Assignments

Please note that this is a tentative breakdown and may change.

Letter Grades

Letter grades will be assigned according to the following scale:

A+  ≥  97%
A  ≥  94%
A–  ≥  90%
B+  ≥  87%
B  ≥  84%
B–  ≥  80%
C+  ≥  77%
C  ≥  74%
C–  ≥  70%
D+  ≥  67%
D  ≥  64%
D–  ≥  60%
F  <  60%

For example, you will receive a C letter grade if your grade is greater than or equal to 70% and less than 77%. Please note this scale is subject to change. See the Undergraduate Student Regulations for more information about letter grades and how they are translated into GPA.

Attendance Policy

Students are expected to be on-time to all classes. Attendance is mandatory for all exams, quizzes, labs, and exercises. Exam dates will be posted on the course calendar.

Late Policy

All deadlines and exam dates are firm. No late homework or quizzes will be accepted. All projects, except the final project, may be submitted (or resubmitted) up to the cutoff date. The final project will be submitted at interactive grading during finals week.

Exceptions to this policy are made only in the case of verifiable medical or family emergency. Extensions and makeup exams must be arranged PRIOR to the original deadline unless in case of extreme emergency (such as an emergency room visit).

Academic Honesty

All students are expected to know and adhere to the University of San Francisco's Honor Code. Go to http://www.usfca.edu/catalog/policies/honor for details. The first violation of the Honor Code will result in an automatic 0 on the offending assignment, and repeat violations will result in an automatic F for the course.

Simply put, do not cheat and do not plagiarize. This includes copying code from the web, copying code from other students, working too closely with other students (all work in this class must be done individually), or having anyone other than yourself write your code.

We will be running MOSS on code to detect cheating in class. See http://theory.stanford.edu/~aiken/moss/ for more information.

Peer Tutoring Services

The CS Tutoring Center provides peer tutoring services and workshops for lower-division computer science courses, including CS 212 Software Development. See http://tutoringcenter.cs.usfca.edu/ for more details.

The Learning and Writing Center also provides assistance to students in their academic pursuits. Services are free to students and include individual and group tutoring appointments and consultations to develop specific study strategies and approaches. Please visit http://www.usfca.edu/lwc for more information.

Student Disability Services

If you are a student with a disability or disabling condition, or if you think you may have a disability, please contact USF Student Disability Services (SDS) within the first week of class to speak with a disability specialist. If you are determined eligible for reasonable accommodations, your disability specialist will send your accommodation letter to the instructor detailing your needs for the course. For more information, please visit http://www.usfca.edu/sds or call (415) 422-2613.

Course Summary:

Date Details Due