Topics

The topics for the class are taken from a variety of sources.  There will be readings from both texts and web resources.  Here is the tentative topic list (likely to be changed as the semester progresses):

• Java Review (1 week)
  • Subtyping and Inheritance
  • Dynamic Dispatch
  • Polymorphism and Downcasting
  • Objects versus References
• Programming Abstractions, Techniques and Tools (2 weeks)
  • Development Principles
  • Debugging
  • Assertions/Invariants
  • Testing
• Object-Oriented Design Patterns (2 weeks)
  • UML
  • Object invariants
  • Class design
  • Patterns: State, Template, Visitor, Decorator, Observer, ...
• Refactoring (1 week)
  • Philosophy
  • Refactoring `patterns'
• Concurrency (4 weeks)
  • Intro to Concurrency
  • Event-based programming
    • Event processing model
    • Java NIO
  • Threads
    • Java threads
    • Java memory model
    • Synchronization: locking (synchronized) and signaling (wait/notify)
    • Design Forces (safety, liveness/deadlock, performance, reusability)
    • Threaded programming patterns
• Distributed Programming with Java RMI (1 week)
• Other topics (3 weeks)

Scheduling

The date for the midterm exam has been set. The date for the final exam will be officially determined by the university; the current unofficial date and time has been posted. If you have a conflict on either these days, you must notify the instructor immediately. We will do our best to accommodate you, but make no guarantees. We will in general not be able accomodate anyone wanting to get a head start on spring or summer break, so please do not schedule a trip that conflicts with the exams. Please also see the university policy on religious observance for details on rescheduling due to religious holy days.

The exact due dates of assignments will be determined during the semester, but a tentative schedule has been posted. If you have a conflict with an assignment due date, again, notify the instructor immediately upon receiving the assignment.

Grading

Most of the topics in the class you will learn by doing, so there will be a substantial emphasis on programming projects. The expected breakdown is shown below (we will inform you if it changes). The final grade will be curved, but you will get at least an A for 90-100, B for 80-89, C for 70-79, D for 60-69 (i.e., the curve can only help your grade beyond this scale). We reserve the right to take into account circumstances other than the ones indicated below in calculating the grade (e.g., class participation, appearance at office hours, etc.).

Projects

• Projects are due at 6pm on the due date.
• Projects may be turned in late up until 9am the next morning. Late submissions receive a 0.9 multiplier. If you submit both on time and late, both are graded and you receive the higher score (with the late submission getting the 0.9 multiplier).
• Submit early and often. The solution submitted last before the deadline is the one that will be graded. Afterwards, if you determine that a version you submitted before the last one is more correct, we can grade that one instead with a 0.9 multiplier.
• You must submit, by the late deadline, a good faith attempt to complete each programming programming project. If you do not, the instructor may fail you for the entire course.
• Developing key insights to the programming projects yourself will be critical to success on the mid-term and final. Do not let anyone spoon feed you the way to solve the programming projects.

Academic Dishonesty

• The college policy on academic dishonesty is strictly followed. All graded materials (whether exams or programming assignments) must be strictly individual efforts.
• The standard penalty for any academic dishonesty, including facilitating academic dishonesty, is to receive a grade of XF in the course. This grade denotes failure due to academic dishonesty, and your transcript will be so annotated.
• How to avoid getting an XF
  • Allowing another student to examine a listing of your program or examining the listing of another student's program, for any reason, is strictly forbidden.
  • Logging onto another student's account, for any reason, is academic dishonesty.
  • Attempting to falsely represent the correctness of your program, or to delay other members of the class from completing a programming assignment, is academic dishonesty
  • Discussions with other students about the project should only be done in an environment with no program listings available.
  • You are discouraged, in the strongest possible terms, from making a habit of getting together with another student at adjacent workstations while you work on a programming project with the idea that you will limit yourselves to discussion of problems such as syntax errors only. There are too many temptations, and if by chance your programs wind up being very similar, you will find it difficult to make a convincing argument that you limited yourselves to allowable discussions of the project.
• We expect you to follow all CSC guidelines for responsible machine usage.
• The instructor is the information owner for all CSIC accounts in this class, and all files in those accounts may be inspected by him at any time.
• Automatic tools and manual inspection will be used to compare your solution to that of every other current or past student in this class, so it will be very difficult to hide any collaboration. The risk of getting caught is too high, and the standard penalty is way too high (grade of XF). In Fall 1997, 14 students who thought they could hide their collaboration in CMSC 430 received grades of XF. As recently as last semester, a cheater in CMSC 433 received an XF, and cheaters in CMSC 412 were caught that had cheated on students' work from prior semesters.