CS 190, Software Systems Design

Brown University
Spring 1999
Prof. David Laidlaw
TAs:Jimmy Ho
& My Lan Payson

Course Description

CS 190 is a course in which students working in teams implement significant software applications. Students learn and practice techniques of project management, specification, presentation, analysis, design, coding, documentation, testing, and maintenance. This class is one of the last in the undergraduate curriculum and it can tie together many of the earlier classes very practically. In addition to the focus on a group programming project, we will discuss, debate, and think about the group software development process. Groups introduce a non-determinism that can be refreshing but can also make a project more challenging that you might first imagine.

Project

When you finish the course, you will have implemented a moderately large software systems as a group. That is the primary objective of the course. Along the way, you will need to determine requirements and specifications for a project in small groups and present it to the class. In a larger group, you'll design the overall project, design the pieces, implement the pieces, integrate them, and demo the result. Throughout, we'll discuss the problems that crop up and see what we can learn from them. We'll also try out a set of in-class programming experiments to evaluate some different software engineering strategies.

Site Info:

Main Page

This page.

MOTD

Message of the Day. See here for announcements.

Course Info

General course information, including syllabus, lecture times, required textbooks, teaching staff, etc.

Project Info

Information about projects.

Office Hours

Documents

Class handouts, lecture slides, on-line technical manuals, supplemental information, etc.

Pictures

Pictures of everyone in the class.

CS 190, Spring 1998

Last year's class, taught by Steve Reiss.