Patterns and Software Architecture (PASA)

Ulrik Pagh Schultz

(With assistance from Aino Cornils, who taught a similar course last year named DPF - Design Patterns and Frameworks).

Practical information

• Lectures: Wednesday 9-12 in Aud. D4.
• Course program
• List of materials
• The daimi.pasa newsgroup
• Course participants
• Details on the PASA project report
• Details on the report peer review
• Course evaluation form, can be printed and sent by internal mail to Ulrik
• Results of the course evaluation
• Student reports in their final versions

Final report

The final report is due 15/6 by email and optionally internal mail to Ulrik (some groups have upon request been given an extended deadline). (I wish to put up a web page with the final reports available on-line, which is why I want an electronic version of the report!) All reports that are handed in by 15/6 will be corrected and returned to the authors 30/6 (if the report needs to be returned to a specific author, don't forget to indicate who).

Projects and presentations

• Presentations for the design pattern/other things from the course survey: see course program.
• Student projects, overview.

Course literature

• Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, E. Gamma, R. Helm, R. Johnson, J. Vlissides
• Handouts (papers, parts of some of the material listed below, etc.)

People, papers and books relevant for the course (more information and links will be added during the course):

• Literature relevant to the course:
  • Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture: A System of Patterns, F. Buschmann, R. Meunier, H. Rohnert, P. Sommerlad, M. Stal
  • Anti-Patterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis, W.H. Brown, R.C. Malveau, H.W. McCormick III, T.J. Mowbray
  • Component Software: Beyond Object-Oriented Programming, C. Szyperski
  • Building Application Frameworks, M.E. Fayad, D.C. Schmidt, R.E. Johnson
• Sites with information on patterns, frameworks, and components:
  • The Patterns Homepage.
  • Cetus Links: information on patterns, frameworks, and components.
  • Component software resources: slightly out of date information on software components.
  • Material collected on student homepages:
    • Bonobo component model (component model for Gnome).
• Sites on eXtreme Programming: Wiki Wiki Web, extremeprogramming.org
• A paper by Frank Buschmann on how to use the design patterns: Building Software with Patterns
• Advice on writing and doing presentations

Course description

This course will give you an introduction to the concepts of patterns, frameworks and software components, followed by an interactive learning period with focus on patterns and a chance to discuss and evaluate the latest research in the area.

Patterns are descriptions of abstract solutions to often recurring problems in object-oriented design. The idea originally came from architecture (for buildings) and the name is chosen because the solutions, since they are used often, occur as patterns in the design. Frameworks are semi-implemented solutions, often describing the underlying architecture of a design. A software component encapsulates a complete implementation of a logical functionality, and is often designed to work in a specific framework.

• Evaluation: Seminars and a written report.
• Prerequisites: dProg2 and dSA or something equivalent.
• Literature: The GoF-book: Gamma et al. (1995)``Design Patterns: Elements of reusable object-oriented software'', a lot of papers, and perhaps excerpts from a few other books (further details to be announced).
• Course language: Danish.
• More details: Slides from the open day presentation of PASA December 6 (if you have problems displaying the slides, either try downloading them first and then using the viewer, or try this alternate version).