CS254r: Programming Methodologies

The Official Statement

Table of Contents

• Administative Details
  • Meeting Information
  • Instructional Staff
  • Email Access
  • Office Hours
  • Prerequisites
  • Sections
  • Computer Issues
  • Texts
  • Handouts
• Syllabus

• The demo presentations of Lotus Notes and Forté, originally scheduled for April 11 and April 18, respectively, will be swapped.

  Usman Rabbani has provided an Introduction to Forté. (Some versions of Ghostscript have trouble with this document, but a PostScript printer should be able to handle it.) Hardcopies are available outside Aiken 102.

• Jan 31.
  Description of the E-L artifacts system and its use for program maintenance and literate programming.
  Handouts:
  • A Literate Implementation in the Artifaces System of the Game of Life by Thomas E. Cheatham, Glenn Holloway, Mike Karr.
  • E-L Users' Manual by Judy G. Townley.
  • Language Users' Manual by Judy G. Townley. Online in e-l-cs254 as artifact name `lman', creator name `e-l'.
  • Common E-L Commands
• Feb 7.
  Description of the activity coordination system, and the underlying model of activiry (transaction) graphs. Video presentation of the activity coordination system as used in managing software development.
  Handouts:
  • Beyond the Read-Eval Loop: Architecture of the Artifacts System by Michael Karr.
  • An Activity Coordination System by Michael Karr, Thomas E. Cheatham.
  • Transaction Graphs: A Sketch Formalism for Activity Coordination by Michael Karr.
  • Reading for the next class:
  • Literate Programming Simplified by Norman Ramsay. From IEEE Software 1994.
• Feb 14.
  Presentation by Eugene Koh on Literate programming, based on the paper Literate Programming Simplified and further research.
  Handouts:
  • Literate Programming by Eugene Koh. (Slides)
  • An Example of CWEB by Donald Knuth (1990).

  The presentation of Beyond the Read-Eval Loop: Architecture of the Artifacts System was cancelled due to absence of the speaker.

  Signup sheet for paper presentations passed around.

• Feb 21.
  Discussion of the E-L systems, strengths and shortcomings, comparison with other systems. Signup for paper presentations. Handouts of papers to be presented next week.
  Handouts:
  • CS254 List of Papers for Presentations and Critiques
  • CS254r Abstracts of Suggested of Papers for Presentations and Critiques
  • Reading for the next class:
  • CVS manual
  • The CM Challenge: Configuration Management That Works by David B. Leblang.
• Feb 28.
  Presentation of papers on ClearCase Configuration management tool, by David Kassay. Presentation on CVS version management system and comparison with SLM version management system used for Windows NT development, by Abolade Gbadegesin.

  To do: Please use the class mailing list (cs254-class@deas.harvard.edu) to propose topics and to form groups for term projects.
  Handouts:

  • The ClearCase Configuration Management Tool (slides) by David A. Kassay.
  • CVS II: Parallelizing Software Development by Brian Berliner.
  • Reading for the next class:
  • Activity Graphs by Michael Karr.
  • CORBA: Integrating Diverse Applications Within Distributed Heterogeneous Environments by Steve Vinoski.
  • Smart Recompilation by Walter F. Tichy, together with Smarter Recompilation by Robert W. Schwanke and Gail E. Kaiser.
• Mar 7.
  Presentation of papers on Smart(er) Recompilation, by Yannis Papaefstathiou. Presentation on Activity Graphs, by Eric Yeh. Presentation on CORBA by Zhenamao Zhang.
  Handouts:
  • Smart Recompilation (slides) by Yannis Papaefstathiou.
  • Activity Graphs (slides and page of formulas) by Eric Yeh.
  • Reading for the next class:
  • Pleiades: An Object Management System for Software Engineering Environments by Peri Tarr and Lori A. Clarke.
  • Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Federation of Process-Centered Environments by Israel Z. Ben-Shaul and Gail E. Kaiser.
  • Booster: A WWW-based Prototype of the Global Software Highway by Baentsch et. al.
  • Java Distributed Object Model copyright by Sun Microsystems.
  • Version Management with Meta-Level Links Via HTTP/1.1 by K. Ota and K. Takahashi and K. Sekiya.
• Mar 14.
  Presentation of Pleiades, by Judy Kuo. Presentation on HTTP / Booster / Java distributed objects, by James Megquier.
  Handouts:
  • Pleiades (slides) by Judy Kuo.
  • Reading for the next class:
  • Supporting Cooperation in the SPADE-1 Environment by Bandinelli et. al.
  • WWW-based Collaboration Environments with Distributed Tool Services by Kaiser et. al.
  • The Design of a Next-Generation Process Language by Stanley M. Sutton Jr. and Leon J. Osterweil.