# CS-130: Software Engineering

#### Westmont College

Winter Hall 206 and Whittier Parking Lot Tent<br/>
Tuesday/Thursday 4:00—5:50pm<br/>
08/31/2021-12/16/2021

#### Office Hours
45 minutes before class or by appointment.

#### Contact
By email, or Slack (preferred)

## Introduction

You've probably talked about data structures and algorithms, along with various programming languages and syntaxes, but what else is involved with being a professional engineer? In this class we'll discuss those extra ideas: designing a robust product, writing the software to make it come alive (all the while chasing a moving target) and finally ensuring quality and deployment.

## Class Format

This class is a project-based class. There will be one major project that all members will contribute to for the majority of the semester.  We'll have occasional readings that will help us on our software engineering journey.  As an initial team agreement, we've decided to meet in-person for the semester.  Being a member of a team means contributing in meaningful ways, but also showing up for your team—that means that attendance is essential.

### Goals
As a class, here are some of our goals (myself included!)

- To ask good questions (this is super important!)
- To be better programmers
- To be better communicators
- To deploy a usable web application
- Try out and have familiarity with variety of technologies and tools

### Grading

When working for a company, we're not assigned letter grades; however, since this is a *class* there will be grades.  There isn't a strict specific breakdown, but grades will be determined by the following factors (sorted highest weight to lowest):

1. Project *(Contributions, involvement, engagement)*
2. Participation *(Asking questions, attending class, being a team player)*
3. Readings & Assignments

While there aren't a tremendous number of assignments throughout the semester, each student will have regular 1:1 meetings with me.  At those times, we can check-in on progress, celebrate accomplishments, and discuss where improvements can be made. At any time, students may ask to meet and discuss grades.

### Thanks

Special thanks to Dan Shank for his willingness to share past course content and ideas.

## Posts

Below you'll find a list of readings, ideas, and other course work and policies. This course is a bit of a work in progress so it will be updated regularly!

Creative Software Architectures for Collaborative Projects

# Materials

## Books
There is no textbook for this class!  That being said, there will be the occasional reading that may be posted on this website, on canvas, or distributed in hard-copy in class.

## Computers & Software
A laptop is required for this course.  Much of our work will be collaborative and we'll be using our laptops in class.

Any development environment will be ok (Mac, Windows, Linux) but we'll be using software such as Docker, NodeJS, Git, etc.  See me if you have trouble with this requirement.