You will attend lectures during which you will gain knowledge of the processes and techniques used to develop real computer based software systems. You will also attend practicals and tutorials during which you will apply and hone your practical software development skills and knowledge. Some of the practical work will be devoted to small exercises to prepare you for the two assignments. There will normally be 2 lectures and 2 practicals/tutorials per week.
(1:n)2 (1:20)2

This is a practical module which is concerned with the development of software applications. Consequently you will learn about the applicability of the fundamental software engineering life cycle model. There follows two phases.

Firstly, you will practically appraise and refine an informal software specification and you will design and implement, in an appropriate computer language, a real software system.

Secondly, you will learn how to develop, implement in an appropriate computer language, and test algorithms that manipulate simple data structures.

100% coursework consisting of:

Assignment 1 - Produce a system design, and implement the system software for a given problem. Answer test questions about the method (60%) (Learning outcome 1).
Assignment 2 - Design, implement and test algorithms that manipulate data structures (40%) (Learning outcome 2).

Software Engineering, Sommerville, Addison-Wesley, 1997. ISBN 0-201-17568-1
Art of Software Testing, Glenford Myers, John Wiley & Sons, 1979, ISBN: 0471043281
Visual Basic: A Complete Course, Phil Jones, Thomson Learning, 2001, ISBN: 0826454054

None

Program and system design support environments (compilers, editors, debuggers, etc.)
Networked PC hardware.