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Table of contents

• Software Design and Development
• Professor(s)
• Topics covered
• Assessment
• Module specification
• Past exams
• Syllabus
• Resources
• Design patterns
• Module cohesion and coupling
• Secure coding practices

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Software Design and Development

This module aims to advance your software development skills so that you can write more robust and complicated programs. You will learn how to use a range of programming techniques that will allow you to deal with unwanted or unexpected events that might happen when your application is running. You will use defensive coding to check data before processing it, and exception handling to gracefully manage unforeseen or unwanted occurrences. You will learn how to discuss program structure concerning cohesion (how to meaningfully organise code into modules) and coupling (how to define the interactions between different parts of the program). You will learn about test-driven development, where you write tests for your code, and write the code itself, in parallel. You will also learn how to use software versioning tools to manage a software project as it develops.

Professor(s)

• Dr. Matthew Yee-King

Topics covered

• Language primer 1: variables and conditionals
• Language primer 2: control flow
• Language primer 3: functions
• Version Control
• Collaboration using version control
• Module coupling and cohesion
• Unit Testing
• Test driven development
• Defensive coding
• Exception handling

Assessment

One two hour unseen written examination and coursework (Type I)

Module specification

• Module specification (September 2020)

Past exams

See past exams here.

Syllabus

• Syllabus (October 2020)

Primary programming language

C++, Javascript, Python

Resources

• Notes - Visit this page of world-class/notes.

• Reading list

Design patterns

• Design Patterns in Plain English - YouTube

Module cohesion and coupling

• [Python] Cohesion and coupling: write BETTER PYTHON CODE Part 1 - ArjanCodes.
  • Full playlist includes topics about dependency inversion/injection, design patterns, exception handling, inheritance, composition and more.

Secure coding practices

• Developing Secure Software (LFD121) - The Linux Foundation.
  • This free course covers the same topics as the ‘secure coding’ section of the module in more depth along with other related topics. The course is heavily based on the reading of the mid-term assignment ‘Secure Programming HOWTO - Creating Secure Software’ as David Wheeler is the author of both materials.