Syllabus

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This textbook was authored for the CIS 400 - Object-Oriented Design, Implementation, and Testing course at Kansas State University. This front matter is specific to that course. If you are not enrolled in the course, please disregard this section.

CIS 400 - Object-Oriented Design, Implementation, and Testing

Class Meeting Times and Locations

  • Section A: M 1:30pm-3:20pm DUF 1092
  • Section B: W 1:30pm-3:20pm DUF 1092

Instructor Contact Information

  • Instructor: Nathan Bean (nhbean AT ksu DOT edu)
  • Office: DUE 2216
  • Phone: (785)483-9264 (Call/Text)
  • Website: https://nathanhbean.com
  • Office Hours: MW 10:30-11:30
  • Virtual Office Hours: By appointment via Zoom. Schedule a meeting via email or Discord.

Preferred Methods of Communication:

  • Chat: Quick questions via Discord are the preferred means of communication.   Questions whose answers may benefit the class I would encourage you to post in the #cis400 channel, as this keeps a public history your classmates can review.  More personal questions should be direct messaged to @Nathan Bean.
  • Email: For questions outside of this course, email to nhbean@ksu.edu is preferred.
  • Phone/Text: 785-483-9264 Emergencies only! I will do my best to respond as quickly as I can.

Prerequisites

  • CIS 300

Students may enroll in CIS courses only if they have earned a grade of C or better for each prerequisite to these courses.

Course Overview

A study of concepts and techniques used to produce quality software programs. Object-oriented concepts, models, execution environments, design and testing techniques. Extensive application of these concepts and techniques to the development of non-trivial software programs.

Course Description

This course is focused on helping you to learn the concepts and skills needed to develop high-quality software. Along the way you will have ample opportunities to practice these skills developing non-trivial software projects. These are not the “baby programs” of early CS coursework, but rather applications that could be used in a production environment.

Accordingly, our goal is not just to write software that compiles without errors, but to develop well-written and maintainable software. This goal demands extra attention to design, documentation, and testing. Additionally, we will explore some of the powerful features of the C# Language and the Visual Studio compiler, as well as other professional tools like Git and Visio.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, we expect each student to be able to:

  • Create class definitions that 1) utilize encapsulation to organize related data and behavior, 2) prevent uncontrolled internal state changes through information hiding, and 3) allow outside code controlled interactions through message passing.
  • Specify expected object behavior and verify it through creating and executing unit tests against a class definition.
  • Utilize polymorphism in the form of inheritance to minimize code duplication by moving shared fields and methods to a common ancestor.
  • Reason about dynamic dispatch to determine what version of a polymorphic function or method will be invoked at runtime.
  • Utilize developer tools like Visual Studio and Git to develop software reliably and efficiently.

Major Course Topics

  • Encapsulation and data hiding
  • Message passing
  • Polymorphism and inheritance
  • Dynamic Dispatch
  • Event-based programming
  • Testing
  • Debugging
  • Software Versioning
  • Code Modularization

Course Structure

A common axiom in learner-centered teaching is “(s)he who does the work does the learning.” What this really means is that students primarily learn through grappling with the concepts and skills of a course while attempting to apply them. Simply seeing a demonstration or hearing a lecture by itself doesn’t do much in terms of learning. This is not to say that they don’t serve an important role - as they set the stage for the learning to come, helping you to recognize the core ideas to focus on as you work. The work itself consists of applying ideas, practicing skills, and putting the concepts into your own words.

This course is built around learner-centered teaching and its recognition of the role and importance of these different aspects of learning. Most class periods will consist of short lectures interspersed with a variety of hands-on activities built around the concepts and skills we are seeking to master. In addition, we will be applying these ideas in iteratively building a series of related software applications over the course of the semester. Part of our class time will be reserved for working on these applications, giving you the chance to ask questions and receive feedback from your instructors, UTAs, and classmates.

The Work

There is no shortcut to becoming a great programmer. Only by doing the work will you develop the skills and knowledge to make your a successful computer scientist. This course is built around that principle, and gives you ample opportunity to do the work, with as much support as we can offer.

Tutorials

Each module will include many tutorial assignments that will take you step-by-step through using a particular concept or technique. The point is not simply to complete the tutorial, but to practice the technique and coding involved. You will be expected to implement these techniques on your own in the milestone assignment of the module - so this practice helps prepare you for those assignments.

Milestone Programming Assignments

Throughout the semester you will be building a non-trivial software project iteratively; every week a new milestone (a collection of features embodying a new version of a software application) will be due. Each milestone builds upon the prior milestone’s code base, so it is critical that you complete each milestone in a timely manner! This process also reflects the way software development is done in the real world - breaking large projects into more readily achievable milestones helps manage the development process.

Following along that real-world theme, programming assignments in this class will also be graded according to their conformance to coding style, documentation, and testing requirements. Each milestone’s rubric will include points assigned to each of these factors. It is not enough to simply write code that compiles and meets the specification; good code is readable, maintainable, efficient, and secure. The principles and practices of Object-Oriented programming that we will be learning in this course have been developed specifically to help address these concerns.

Exams

Over the course of the semester we will have a total of four exams. The primary purpose of these exams is formative; they are intended to help us (me as the instructor and you as the student) evaluate how you are learning the material. Thus, my testing policies may differ greatly from your prior courses.

These exams will cover the vocabulary and concepts we are learning and involve reasoning about object-oriented programming, including some code writing. The purpose of this style of assessment to assess your ability to recognize the problem and conceive an appropriate solution. Hence, you are encouraged to annotate your answers with comments, describing your reasoning as you tackle the problem. Additionally, I will include a “certainty scale” for each question, and would ask that you mark how confident you are in your answer. Doing these extra steps helps me know how well you are grasping the material, and helps both of us to know what concepts and skills may need more work.

The first exam is a pretest that is used to help establish your knowledge and readiness coming into the course. You will earn a 100% for completing this exam, regardless of your correct or incorrect responses.

The second two exams are midterms, which cover the content immediately proceeding them. You will have a chance to correct mistakes you have made in these exams, potentially earning back some lost points.

The final exam is comprehensive, and covers the most important topics and skills we have developed in the course. This is considered a summative test (one that measures your mastery of a subject). It will count for twice the number of points as the earlier exams, and you will not have a chance to correct mistakes made on it.

Grading

In theory, each student begins the course with an A. As you submit work, you can either maintain your A (for good work) or chip away at it (for less adequate or incomplete work). In practice, each student starts with 0 points in the gradebook and works upward toward a final point total out of the possible number of points. In this course, it is perfectly possible to get an A simply by completing all the software milestones in a satisfactory manner and attending and participating in class each day. In such a case, the examinations will simply reflect the learning you’ve been doing through that work. Each work category constitutes a portion of the final grade, as detailed below:

30% - Activities, Tutorials, and Quizzes (The lowest 2 scores are dropped)

44% - Programming Assignment Milestones (4% each, 12 milestones total; The single lowest assignment score will be dropped)

26% - Exams (5.2% each, with the final worth double at 10.4; 4 exams total)

Letter grades will be assigned following the standard scale: 90% - 100% - A; 80% - 89.99% - B; 70% - 79.99% - C; 60% - 69.99% - D; 00% - 59.99% - F

At the end of the semester, for students who have earned a borderline grade (i.e. a 89.98%, which is a B), I will bump their grade to the next highest letter grade based on the student’s completion of exam annotations and confidence ratings on exam questions. That is to say, if the example student regularly gives detailed annotations of their thought process, and rates their confidence in their answer, I will bump their 89.98% to an A. Students who do not provide annotations and confidence ratings will not be bumped, for any reason.

Collaboration

Collaboration is an important practice for both learning and software development. As such, you are encouraged to work with peers and seek out help from your instructors and UTAs. However, it is also critical to remember that (s)he who does the work, does the learning. Relying too much on your peers will deny you the opportunity to learn yourself. As the skills we are working on are the foundations on which all future computer science coursework relies, any skills you fail to develop in this course can have long-ranging effects on your future success, in both classes and the working world.

Determining where the line between good collaboration and over-reliance on others can be challenging, especially as a student. I offer a few guidelines that can help:

  1. If you can’t yet put a concept into your own words and explain it to someone not versed in programming, you do not yet have a full grasp of the concept. Don’t be tempted to use someone else’s words - keep working at it until you can use your own. But “working at it” in this context can mean seeking out additional explanations from other people. Sometimes getting enough different perspectives on a concept is what you need to be able to synthesize your own.
  2. Directly copying another student’s code and turning it in as your own work is never acceptable. It is a form of plagiarism and constitutes academic dishonesty and can result in severe penalties (covered below). This does not mean you can’t discuss the assignment and approaches to solving it with your peers - in fact doing so is often a useful learning practice. Just keep those discussions above the code level.
  3. As a corollary to point 2, it is okay to ask another student to look at your code when you are struggling with syntax or errors. However, don’t let them correct it for you - let them offer suggestions but make any changes yourself. The act of making these changes actually contributes to the stimulus your brain is using to develop programming skills. So don’t let others shortchange your opportunity to learn (including instructors and UTAs).

Late Work

Warning

Read the late work policy very carefully! If you are unsure how to interpret it, please contact the instructor via email. Not understanding the policy does not mean that it won’t apply to you!

Every student should strive to turn in work on time. Late work will receive a penalty of 10% of the possible points for each day it is late. Missed class attendance cannot be made up, though as mentioned above some areas will drop the lowest two scores. If you are getting behind in the class, you are encouraged to speak to the instructor for options to make up missed work.

Software

We will be using Visual Studio 2019 as our development environment. You can download a free copy of Visual Studio Community for your own machine at https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/. You should also be able to get a professional development license through your Azure Student Portal. See the CS support documentation for details: https://support.cs.ksu.edu/CISDocs/wiki/FAQ#MSDNAA

Additionally, we will create UML diagrams using Microsoft Visio, which can also be downloaded from the Azure Student Portal (see above).

We will use Xamarin workbooks to distribute some content. This free software can be downloaded from: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/tools/workbooks/install

Discord also offers some free desktop and mobile clients that you may prefer over the web client. You may download them from: https://discord.com/download.

To participate in this course, students must have access to a modern web browser and broadband internet connection. All course materials will be provided via Canvas. Modules may also contain links to external resources for additional information, such as programming language documentation.

This course offers an instructor-written textbook, which is broken up into a specific reading order and interleaved with activities and quizzes in the modules. It can also be directly accessed at https://textbooks.cs.ksu.edu/cis400.

Students who would like additional textbooks should refer to resources available on the O’Riley For Higher Education digital library offered by the Kansas State University Library. These include electronic editions of popular textbooks as well as videos and tutorials.

Subject to Change

The details in this syllabus are not set in stone. Due to the flexible nature of this class, adjustments may need to be made as the semester progresses, though they will be kept to a minimum. If any changes occur, the changes will be posted on the Canvas page for this course and emailed to all students.

Academic Honesty

Kansas State University has an Honor and Integrity System based on personal integrity, which is presumed to be sufficient assurance that, in academic matters, one’s work is performed honestly and without unauthorized assistance. Undergraduate and graduate students, by registration, acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Honor and Integrity System. The policies and procedures of the Honor and Integrity System apply to all full and part-time students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate courses on-campus, off-campus, and via distance learning. A component vital to the Honor and Integrity System is the inclusion of the Honor Pledge which applies to all assignments, examinations, or other course work undertaken by students. The Honor Pledge is implied, whether or not it is stated: “On my honor, as a student, I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this academic work.” A grade of XF can result from a breach of academic honesty. The F indicates failure in the course; the X indicates the reason is an Honor Pledge violation.

For this course, a violation of the Honor Pledge will result in sanctions such as a 0 on the assignment or an XF in the course, depending on severity. Actively seeking unauthorized aid, such as posting lab assignments on sites such as Chegg or StackOverflow or asking another person to complete your work, even if unsuccessful, will result in an immediate XF in the course.

Standard Syllabus Statements

Info

The statements below are standard syllabus statements from K-State and our program.

Students with Disabilities

At K-State it is important that every student has access to course content and the means to demonstrate course mastery. Students with disabilities may benefit from services including accommodations provided by the Student Access Center. Disabilities can include physical, learning, executive functions, and mental health. You may register at the Student Access Center or to learn more contact:

Students already registered with the Student Access Center please request your Letters of Accommodation early in the semester to provide adequate time to arrange your approved academic accommodations. Once SAC approves your Letter of Accommodation it will be e-mailed to you, and your instructor(s) for this course. Please follow up with your instructor to discuss how best to implement the approved accommodations.

Expectations for Conduct

All student activities in the University, including this course, are governed by the Student Judicial Conduct Code as outlined in the Student Governing Association By Laws, Article V, Section 3, number 2. Students who engage in behavior that disrupts the learning environment may be asked to leave the class.

Mutual Respect and Inclusion in K-State Teaching & Learning Spaces

At K-State, faculty and staff are committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive and supportive learning environment for students from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. K-State courses, labs, and other virtual and physical learning spaces promote equitable opportunity to learn, participate, contribute, and succeed, regardless of age, race, color, ethnicity, nationality, genetic information, ancestry, disability, socioeconomic status, military or veteran status, immigration status, Indigenous identity, gender identity, gender expression, sexuality, religion, culture, as well as other social identities.

Faculty and staff are committed to promoting equity and believe the success of an inclusive learning environment relies on the participation, support, and understanding of all students. Students are encouraged to share their views and lived experiences as they relate to the course or their course experience, while recognizing they are doing so in a learning environment in which all are expected to engage with respect to honor the rights, safety, and dignity of others in keeping with the (K-State Principles of Community)[https://www.k-state.edu/about/values/community/].

If you feel uncomfortable because of comments or behavior encountered in this class, you may bring it to the attention of your instructor, advisors, and/or mentors. If you have questions about how to proceed with a confidential process to resolve concerns, please contact the Student Ombudsperson Office. Violations of the student code of conduct can be reported here. If you experience bias or discrimination, it can be reported here.

Netiquette

Info

This is our personal policy and not a required syllabus statement from K-State. It has been adapted from this statement from K-State Global Campus, and the Recurse Center Manual. We have adapted their ideas to fit this course.

Online communication is inherently different than in-person communication. When speaking in person, many times we can take advantage of the context and body language of the person speaking to better understand what the speaker means, not just what is said. This information is not present when communicating online, so we must be much more careful about what we say and how we say it in order to get our meaning across.

Here are a few general rules to help us all communicate online in this course, especially while using tools such as Canvas or Discord:

  • Use a clear and meaningful subject line to announce your topic. Subject lines such as “Question” or “Problem” are not helpful. Subjects such as “Logic Question in Project 5, Part 1 in Java” or “Unexpected Exception when Opening Text File in Python” give plenty of information about your topic.
  • Use only one topic per message. If you have multiple topics, post multiple messages so each one can be discussed independently.
  • Be thorough, concise, and to the point. Ideally, each message should be a page or less.
  • Include exact error messages, code snippets, or screenshots, as well as any previous steps taken to fix the problem. It is much easier to solve a problem when the exact error message or screenshot is provided. If we know what you’ve tried so far, we can get to the root cause of the issue more quickly.
  • Consider carefully what you write before you post it. Once a message is posted, it becomes part of the permanent record of the course and can easily be found by others.
  • If you are lost, don’t know an answer, or don’t understand something, speak up! Email and Canvas both allow you to send a message privately to the instructors, so other students won’t see that you asked a question. Don’t be afraid to ask questions anytime, as you can choose to do so without any fear of being identified by your fellow students.
  • Class discussions are confidential. Do not share information from the course with anyone outside of the course without explicit permission.
  • Do not quote entire message chains; only include the relevant parts. When replying to a previous message, only quote the relevant lines in your response.
  • Do not use all caps. It makes it look like you are shouting. Use appropriate text markup (bold, italics, etc.) to highlight a point if needed.
  • No feigning surprise. If someone asks a question, saying things like “I can’t believe you don’t know that!” are not helpful, and only serve to make that person feel bad.
  • No “well-actually’s.” If someone makes a statement that is not entirely correct, resist the urge to offer a “well, actually…” correction, especially if it is not relevant to the discussion. If you can help solve their problem, feel free to provide correct information, but don’t post a correction just for the sake of being correct.
  • Do not correct someone’s grammar or spelling. Again, it is not helpful, and only serves to make that person feel bad. If there is a genuine mistake that may affect the meaning of the post, please contact the person privately or let the instructors know privately so it can be resolved.
  • Avoid subtle -isms and microaggressions. Avoid comments that could make others feel uncomfortable based on their personal identity. See the syllabus section on Diversity and Inclusion above for more information on this topic. If a comment makes you uncomfortable, please contact the instructor.
  • Avoid sarcasm, flaming, advertisements, lingo, trolling, doxxing, and other bad online habits. They have no place in an academic environment. Tasteful humor is fine, but sarcasm can be misunderstood.

As a participant in course discussions, you should also strive to honor the diversity of your classmates by adhering to the K-State Principles of Community.

Face Coverings

Kansas State University strongly encourages, but does not require, that everyone wear masks while indoors on university property, including while attending in-person classes. For additional information and the latest on K-State’s face covering policy, see this page.

Discrimination, Harassment, and Sexual Harassment

Kansas State University is committed to maintaining academic, housing, and work environments that are free of discrimination, harassment, and sexual harassment. Instructors support the University’s commitment by creating a safe learning environment during this course, free of conduct that would interfere with your academic opportunities. Instructors also have a duty to report any behavior they become aware of that potentially violates the University’s policy prohibiting discrimination, harassment, and sexual harassment (PPM 3010).

If a student is subjected to discrimination, harassment, or sexual harassment, they are encouraged to make a non-confidential report to the University’s Office for Institutional Equity (OIE) using the online reporting form. Incident disclosure is not required to receive resources at K-State. Reports that include domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking, should be considered for reporting by the complainant to the Kansas State University Police Department or the Riley County Police Department. Reports made to law enforcement are separate from reports made to OIE. A complainant can choose to report to one or both entities. Confidential support and advocacy can be found with the K-State Center for Advocacy, Response, and Education (CARE). Confidential mental health services can be found with Lafene Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). Academic support can be found with the Office of Student Life (OSL). OSL is a non-confidential resource. A comprehensive list of resources is available here. If you have questions about non-confidential and confidential resources, please contact OIE at equity@ksu.edu or (785) 532–6220.

Academic Freedom Statement

Kansas State University is a community of students, faculty, and staff who work together to discover new knowledge, create new ideas, and share the results of their scholarly inquiry with the wider public. Although new ideas or research results may be controversial or challenge established views, the health and growth of any society requires frank intellectual exchange. Academic freedom protects this type of free exchange and is thus essential to any university’s mission.

Moreover, academic freedom supports collaborative work in the pursuit of truth and the dissemination of knowledge in an environment of inquiry, respectful debate, and professionalism. Academic freedom is not limited to the classroom or to scientific and scholarly research, but extends to the life of the university as well as to larger social and political questions. It is the right and responsibility of the university community to engage with such issues.

Campus Safety

Kansas State University is committed to providing a safe teaching and learning environment for student and faculty members. In order to enhance your safety in the unlikely case of a campus emergency make sure that you know where and how to quickly exit your classroom and how to follow any emergency directives. To view additional campus emergency information go to the University’s main page, www.k-state.edu, and click on the Emergency Information button, located at the bottom of the page.

Student Resources

K-State has many resources to help contribute to student success. These resources include accommodations for academics, paying for college, student life, health and safety, and others found at www.k-state.edu/onestop.

Student Academic Creations

Student academic creations are subject to Kansas State University and Kansas Board of Regents Intellectual Property Policies. For courses in which students will be creating intellectual property, the K-State policy can be found at University Handbook, Appendix R: Intellectual Property Policy and Institutional Procedures (part I.E.). These policies address ownership and use of student academic creations.

Mental Health

Your mental health and good relationships are vital to your overall well-being. Symptoms of mental health issues may include excessive sadness or worry, thoughts of death or self-harm, inability to concentrate, lack of motivation, or substance abuse. Although problems can occur anytime for anyone, you should pay extra attention to your mental health if you are feeling academic or financial stress, discrimination, or have experienced a traumatic event, such as loss of a friend or family member, sexual assault or other physical or emotional abuse.

If you are struggling with these issues, do not wait to seek assistance.

For Kansas State Polytechnic Campus:

University Excused Absences

K-State has a University Excused Absence policy (Section F62). Class absence(s) will be handled between the instructor and the student unless there are other university offices involved. For university excused absences, instructors shall provide the student the opportunity to make up missed assignments, activities, and/or attendance specific points that contribute to the course grade, unless they decide to excuse those missed assignments from the student’s course grade. Please see the policy for a complete list of university excused absences and how to obtain one. Students are encouraged to contact their instructor regarding their absences.

©2021 The materials in this online course fall under the protection of all intellectual property, copyright and trademark laws of the U.S. The digital materials included here come with the legal permissions and releases of the copyright holders. These course materials should be used for educational purposes only; the contents should not be distributed electronically or otherwise beyond the confines of this online course. The URLs listed here do not suggest endorsement of either the site owners or the contents found at the sites. Likewise, mentioned brands (products and services) do not suggest endorsement. Students own copyright to what they create.

Original content in the course textbook at https://textbooks.cs.ksu.edu/cis400 is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA license by Nathan Bean unless otherwise stated.