This course addresses the requirements, architecture and design phases of the software development life-cycle. It has a primary focus on modeling and its central role in eliciting, understanding, analysing and communicating software requirements, architecture and design. Students will learn to use several different modeling approaches to describe complex subject matters typically involved in developing, analysing and specifying requirements, architecture and design. While most of the approaches will seem straight forward and even conceptually simple, students will discover that a good deal of effort and diligence is required to produce useful, accurate, meaningful, understandable and easily maintainable models. Through a series of practical workshops, students will develop an appreciation for the characteristics and capabilities of each approach, and will learn to make decisions as to the best approach to use for a given purpose. Students will then learn how to integrate several modeling approaches to form software requirements, architecture and design specifications that are unambiguous, consistent and understandable. At the end of the course, students will be introduced to various approaches for automating the translation of specifications (models) into operational software systems. This will include topics such as model translation, code generation and an overview of active research in the area of model-driven engineering.

Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:

1. Explain the role and importance of modelling in software analysis and design
2. Demonstrate the practical application of several modeling languages
3. Make and defend decisions regarding the use of appropriate modelling languages for a given purpose
4. Integrate a set of models to form effective requirements and design specifications
5. Describe concepts involved in model translation
6. Demonstrate the translation of a simple specification to form an executable program
7. Explain and analyse emerging model-driven development techniques

Workshops (30%), Mid-Semester Exam (30%); Final Exam (40%)

Thirteen two-hour lectures and seven two-hour workshop sessions.

COMP8120

There are no prescribed textbooks for this course, but the following book covers many of the concepts addressed in the course.Mellor, Stephen J. & Balcer, Marc J. Executable UML - A foundation for Model-Driven Architecture, (2002).Additional references will posted as appropriate on the course web page.