SE 2040: Software Development III Weekly Outcomes

See the main page for weekly plans and notes.

• Week 1:
  • The need to be able to learn new languages.
  • Using familiar elements of programming to learn a new language: expressions, if, loops, functions in Ruby.
  • How read-eval-print loops help explore a language and write code.
    • Note irb is used to demonstrate most of these and other Ruby programming concepts.
  • Using Ruby types and related operations, including classes, to construct readable, maintainable code.
  • What it means for classes to be open and how it is useful for extending standard library classes (like Array) with project-specific methods.
  • Using Ruby blocks to process collections, exposure to processing collections using .map and .each (that is, an element of functional programming).
  • Writing full programs in Ruby.
• Week 2:
  • Understanding standard input, standard output, and standard error, including how standard error differs in behavior from standard output.
  • Understanding redirection including < > and |.
  • Writing robust Ruby code.
  • Motivating C++: high performance with OO.
  • Identifying strong similarities between Java and C++.
  • Using <iostream> for standard input and output.
  • A simple view of compiling C++ programs.
  • Using the fundamental types to construct C++ programs.
  • Understanding scope and lifetime in the context of C++ programs.
  • Understanding the distinction between runtime and compile-time.
• Week 3:
  • Writing end-of-file controlled loops
  • DeMorgan's law and using it to write while loops
  • Short-circuiting && and ||
  • Declaring and initializing (defining) arrays in C++
  • Understanding how pointers can be used to access data in the heap and in arrays.
    • Reference types are purposefully discussed at a later date.
  • Practical examples of uninitialized data in C++ programs
  • Understanding that code is at an address and that code and arbitrary data can be accidentally modified at runtime
  • Writing basic C++ programs.
• Week 4:
  • Writing object-oriented programs in C++.
  • From textbook (not necessarily discussed): enumerations and enum classes
  • Picturing program execution through memory maps.
  • Using std::string to process text.
• Week 5:
  • Declarations vs. definitions in C++ and how to separate class declarations from method definitions.
  • Writing C++ programs as a collection of header files and implementations, also known as compilation units.
  • #include safety: minimal includes in headers, listing "my" header before other project headers to identify errors earlier.
  • Using namespaces to control scope.
  • Using assert to check function preconditions
  • Throwing, catching exceptions
• Week 6:
  • Understanding the significance of the statement by Stroustrup: "the central language feature of C++ is the class"
• Week 7:
• Week 8:
• Week 9:
• Week 10: