Syllabus#

Introduction to full-stack application design and development. Students will work in project teams to design and build complete, working applications and services using standard tools. Topics include best-practices in design, development, testing, and deployment.

The course outline is also published on outline.uwaterloo.ca.

Prerequisites#

This course is restricted to Computer Science students, and you must have successfully completed CS 246 Object-Oriented Programming before taking this course. You should be able to:

• Design, code and debug small C++ programs using standard tools. e.g. GCC and GDB.
• Write effective unit tests for these programs. e.g. checking for a range of invalid conditions.
• Demonstrate programming proficiency in C++, which includes:
  • understanding of fundamental OO concepts. e.g. abstraction, encapsulation
  • using classes, objects, method overloading, and single inheritance; polymorphism
  • understanding how to use assertions, and
  • knowing how to manage exceptions.

You must be enrolled in one of these programs: H-BBA & BCS Double Degree, H-Computer Science (BCS), H-Computer Science (BMath), JH-Computer Science (BCS), JH-Computer Science (BMath), H-Computing & Financial Management, H-Data Science (BCS), or H-Software Engineering.

Learning Objectives#

This course includes a mix of lectures, demos and project activities. The course project is a significant element of the course. On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Work effectively as a member of a software development team.
• Use an iterative process to manage the design, development and testing of software projects.
• Design and develop different styles of application software in Kotlin, with appropriate architectural choices.
• Include online and offline capabilities in your application, leveraging local and remote storage.
• Design services that can provide remote capabilities to your application.
• Produce unit and integration tests as an essential part of the development process.
• Apply debugging and profiling techniques as required during development.

Required Resources#

There is no required textbook for this course. All required course materials, including lecture slides, are freely available on the course website.

Computer Specifications#

To participate in coding and other project activities, each person on your team requires a capable and relatively modern computer. You must have administrative rights on this machine, which disqualifies the use of lab computers. A notebook computer is recommended so that you can work on your project in-class.

Recommended minimum specifications

• Windows, macOS or Linux
• 8 GB of RAM or more
• 75 GB of free drive space

Online Resources#

We use the following online websites.

	Learn Team registration & tests. Grades are recorded here.
	Piazza Forum software. Course announcements, ask questions.
	GitLab Store your project materials here.