CISC836: Models in software development: methods, techniques, and tools (Fall 2011) Home page [Home] [Content] [Schedule] [Paper Presentations and Reviews] [Projects] [Participants]

Teaching Staff
Instructor: Juergen Dingel, Goodwin Hall 723, dingel@cs, office hours: Tba

Time and place
Monday 1 - 2:30pm and Wednesday at 12-1:30pm. The first meeting is on Monday, Sept 12 at 1pm in Goodwin 521.
Note: Starting Oct 3, the class will meet in Room 321 in Ellis Hall on Mondays and in Room D214 in MacCorry on Wednesdays (Ellis Hall and MacCorry have, respectively, numbers 30 and 29 on this campus map).

Audience
This course is suitable for students with an interest in the theory and practise of software development in general and the use of models in software development in particular.

General Description
Models are pervasive in engineering. The impact of models on the practise of software engineering, however, has been relatively limited and pales in comparison to the pivotal roles models play in other engineering disciplines. Recently, the idea of making models a more prominent artifact in everyday software development has been enjoying increasing support in academia and industry and many approaches, tools and standards have been proposed.

This course will present some of the key ideas, potential benefits and challenges of software modeling in general and of model-driven development (MDD) in particular. Specific attention will be paid to techniques for the definition of modeling languages, and for the analysis and transformation of models. Moreover, case studies and tools will be discussed.

At the end of the course, students will be familiar with the state of the art in software modeling and have gained some critical understanding of the theory and practice involving the definition, analysis, or transformation of models of software.

The goals of this course are to

• present some of the fundamental concepts, techniques, and research challenges involving the use of models in software development.
• give students some practical experience with the use, advantages and disadvantages of software modeling.
• introduce students to the research in the field.

Format
The course will combine lectures, assigned readings, and a project. The course will cover the topics described on the Content page. The assigned readings will be drawn from the research literature and reinforce the lecture material. The projects will serve to, e.g., provide hands-on experience with a specific tool or technology.

Marking scheme
A student's overall mark will be computed as follows:

• Participation: 10%
• Paper presentation: 25%
• Paper review: 15%
• Project: 50%

Prerequisites
Mathematical maturity on the level of CISC 203 and 204 and programming experience (preferably in Java). Some knowledge of concurrent programming.

Material

• Slides: The lecture slides will be made available on the Schedule page.
• Papers: Research papers are available on the Schedule page.
• On-line material: Most of the tools discussed in the course have extensive publically accessible web pages.
• Textbooks on the topic (not mandatory)
  • On UML
    • G. Booch, J. Rumbaugh, I. Jacobson. UML User Guide. 2nd Edition. Addison Wesley. 2005.
    • M. Fowler. UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language (3rd Edition). Addison Wesley. 2003.
  • On MDD and MDA
    • J. Greenfield and K. Short. Software Factories. Wiley. 2004.
    • S.J. Mellor, K. Scott, A. Uhl, D. Weise. MDA Distilled: Principles of Model-Driven Architecture. Addison Wesley. 2004.
    • A. Kleppe. Software Language Engineering. Addison Wesley. 2009.
    • S. Kelly and J.-P. Tolvanen. Domain-Specific Modeling: Enabling Full Code Generation. Wiley 2008.
  • On Alloy
    • D. Jackson. Software Abstractions: Logic, Language, and Analysis Export. MIT Press. 2006.
      Note: Available online through the Books24x7 service which is free for Queen's students. Go here to get started.
  • On model checking
    • G. Holzmann. The SPIN Model Checker: Primer and Reference Manual. Addison Wesley. 2003
      Note: I have several copies of this book in my office that I'm happy to lend out for a limited time.
    • M. Ben-Ari. Principles of the Spin Model Checker. Springer 2008.
    • C. Baier, J.-P. Katoen. Principles of Model Checking. MIT Press. 2008.

Last modified: Thu Oct 27 09:34:19 EDT 2011