We’ll be using a variety of tools in this course to learn and practice software design skills. This is an overview of the main ones we’ll be using, both required and suggested.

Required Tools

Java

All of the programming assignments, lectures and tools we’ll be discussing will be in Java. While the principals and patterns will be (mostly) general and applicable to any language, we’ll be doing things in Java. You will need to have a Java 8 runtime installed and working on your machine to work on the assignments.

You can test the version of Java you have installed by running java -version from the command line. Any output that doesn’t look something like java version "1.8.XXX" means you probably have the wrong version installed.

Unix-y Operating System

Examples will be given in a unix-y environment (linux and OSX), and assignments will be tested on linux. With a properly configured environment Windows will work fine too, but you will be responsible for making sure your project builds and runs correctly on linux. If your primary machine is not a linux machine, please see below for suggestions.

GnuMake

Most of the programming assignments will be run and tested using a simple provided make script. This is for several reasons, including: to allow students to use any IDEs / development platform they like when writing code, to make it easier to test students’ submissions, and to better demonstrate what complex IDEs are doing under the hood.

Students will need to make sure that their homework and project submissions work correctly using the provided make file.

Git

All homework will be provided using git, and all completed homework assignments must be submitted through git. A basic run through of git functionality will be provided on the first day of class, but students needing a further tutorial / refresher / catch up may want to consult the official git documentation.

SSH

Access to your git respository will be controlled by using SSH keys. You’ll need to generate, secure, and maintain a SSH key private key to fetch and submit homework assignments. You’ll also need to send me the corresponding public SSH key.

If you are not familiar with generating and using SSH keys, you might find resources like the first three step’s of GitHub’s guide to SSH keys useful.

Suggested Tools

CheckStyle

CheckStyle is a opensource Java development tool that checks the formatting of your code to, so that it follows patterns and practices. This helps ensure that your code is equally as readable to humans as it is to compilers. It has configurable rule sets. A common ruleset is the Goole Java Style guide, which you can instruct checkstyle to use by downloading the XML configuration file for the rule set and running checkstyle -c google_checks.xml <path to java files>.

VirtualBox

All homework assignments will be graded on a linux machine, using Java 8 on the command line (unless otherwise stated). If you are on a platform where installing Java 8 is difficult, or where running programs from the command line can be tricky, you might consider using VirtualBox to run linux in a virtual machine.