CSE/ISE 308
Fall 2004
Stony Brook 		Software Engineering
Annie Liu
Assignment 1 		Handout A1
Aug. 31, 2004
Due Sept. 2 and 7
Questionnaire; Customer Wanting Software; What I Did

This assignment has three parts. Part 1 is due in class on Thursday Sept. 2; Parts 2 and 3 are due in class on Tuesday Sept. 7.

Part 1. Questionnaire

Fill out the Questionnaire in Handout Q if you have not already done so, and submit it by Thursday in class. This will help forming teams. If you have preferences working with, or not working with, specific other students in a team, send me an email with the names, preferences, and explain why; if you prefer certain people in your team, you must CC to them in your email.

Part 2. Customer Wanting Software

Describe a software that you would like as a customer, and create a homepage that contains the description.

  • It should be a software that you think is important but to your knowledge is not currently available exactly as you want. Explain why it is important, and how different it is from related things that you know are available. You may want to give references, e.g., links to other webpages, to support your description. Note that this software project is independent of what project you will select to do for the course.

  • The software can be standalone, or be a component in a larger system, as long as you specify the interface through which you can use the system (needed for testing and evaluation later). You don't need to worry too much about whether 2000 or 4000 lines of code is needed to implement it, but keep in mind that requirements for a too complicated or a too simple system can not be written in a page or two of English.

  • The system needs not be implemented using Java or running on a specific platform. The language or platform matter may or may not be part of the description. However, if the resulting system must be working in a specific environment, then you need to specify it, e.g., running over a web browser. For evaluation purposes at the end, as long as others can download your system, build and use it easily, it is fine.

  • The description should be as clear and complete as you can possibly write in a half day or a day, in 1 or 2 pages (depending on the density of your printout). If you think of building a software like building a house, then specifying what software you want is similar to specifying what a house you want exactly.

    Part 3. What I did

    Describe what you did for the course this week. Make it a simple list of brief items, and elaborate if you find anything particularly interesting. The list may include, e.g., doing items 1 and 2 of this homework, reading chapter 1 of the textbook, web pages on UML, or a related magazine article, learning CVS, etc.

    Bonus

    Through out the course, you get extra credit for brining up anything particularly interesting about software development (facts, tools, lessons learned, ...) to my attention. They can be shared with the entire class.

    Handins

    For Part 1, hand it in in class on the due date, if you have not handed it in before that. For Part 2, before class on the due date, send me an email in plain text containing three lines of the following forms 

    <a href="full-url-of-your-description">Name of the Software You Want</a>
<a href="full-url-of-your-homepage">Your Name</a>
your-email-address (this line will not be posted but the first two lines will)
    and hand in a printout of your description in class. For Part 3, hand in a hardcopy in class on the due date. We prefer that printouts and hardcopies be handed in at the beginning of the class.

    Grading

    This homework is worth about 4% of the course grade. Each of the three parts is worth 10,80,10% of the grade, respectively. Exceptionally well thought-out and well written homeworks will receive appropriate extra credit.