SWENG588 - Program Understanding
Fall 2013, Section 001 - 3.0 Credits
Schedule Number 176719
Important Dates
Reg Period: 3/14/2013 - 10/21/2013
First Day of Class: 10/21/2013
End of Class: 12/8/2013
Ready To Enroll?
Use the Schedule This Course table below to get started.
Contact Us
800-252-3592
814-865-5403 (international)
814-865-0741 (TTY - hearing impaired)
fax: 814-865-3290
e-mail: psuwd@psu.edu
Penn State World Campus
The Pennsylvania State University
128 Outreach Building
University Park PA 16802
Course Description
Techniques for the analysis and visualization of large software systems to assess the quality of the design and architecture.
Strong writing skills are recommended for this course. If English is not your native language, it is important that you read additional information regarding English language proficiency before registering for this course.
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for the course.
Costs and Fees
This course will be included in your semester bill.
Remarks
It is a general observation that software engineers learn about software design, programming languages, paradigms, patterns and tools, and are expected to produce high quality designs and code, often without ever having seen good examples. This approach is akin to teaching students the syntax of the English language and writing techniques, and then expecting them to become expert writers without ever having read great literary works.
The course in Program Understanding seeks to educate graduate software engineering students beyond their understanding of code syntax and best construction practices with analytical evaluation of "great works" of software code. This approach includes manual code reading, the use of visualization techniques, and automated approaches to the assessment of design and code quality. Through these techniques they learn to construct abstract representations of systems that can be explored in a systematic way. Through this exploration, they begin to discriminate between systems that are inherently complex and those that are unnecessarily complicated. Such insights are followed by techniques to transform a system to a more desirable form.
This course is part of a cohort program and is only available to students accepted into the Master of Software Engineering program - cohort 5.
Schedule This Course
| If you are a: | Please: |
|---|---|
| First-time Penn State student | Phone, fax, or mail this form or Contact Us |
| Returning World Campus student (with active Penn State Access Account*) | Schedule via eLion or Contact Us** |
| Returning World Campus student (without active Penn State Access Account*) | Phone, fax, or mail this form |
| Student from a Penn State campus other than World Campus | Contact Us |
* Verify an existing Access Account or request a new Access Account and return it.
**The first day to schedule classes is based on the priority registration process.
Note: For a step-by-step process, see our Schedule a Course page.
Material Requirements
There are no required purchased materials for this course.
Technical Requirements
Please test your computer for requirements
Software Requirements
No special software is required.
Note: The above information is subject to change at any time by The Pennsylvania State University.