Introduction:

Software Engineering is a vast topic with many opinions, publications, and tools. It is also where

process meets design and there are many ways to design applications. The best ways to be

competitive in this industry is maintaining versatility by studying multiple works and having a

wide array of project management tools and techniques at the ready.

I’d like you to practice this by selecting a single publication of book length and making your way

through it during the semester. I highly recommend making this selection early and pacing

yourself throughout the semester. Like a good meal, trying to digest it all at once will likely cause

issues. Part of your weekly check-ins will involve reporting on your progress.

As proof of competition you’ll need to provide one of the submissables listed below.

Potential Readings:

Anything related to Software Engineering, Software Design Patterns, Software Architectures,

Project Management, or General Software Development is a potential, but it must be listed here.

If you want to read something that is not on this list, email that work to me and I’ll review. If I

approve, I’ll add it to the list. You are welcome to listen to it instead of reading it.

● The Pragmatic Programmer

● Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering

● Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

● Clean Code

● Head First Design Patterns: Building Extensible and Maintainable Object-Oriented

Software

● Extreme Programming Explained Embrace Change

● Fowler, M., Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

Submissible:

As proof of completion, I’d like you to submit a book review to be shared with the class.

This review can be written or as a video essay. Make sure you provide enough detail to show

that you spent enough time with the text to understand the content. A quality review would be

between 3 - 5 single typed pages plus any images and lists needed to summarize the lessons

learned or between 10 - 15 minutes of presentation. Make sure you address the following:

Summarize the book and explain its purpose.

Give an outline for the book.

Detail what your primary take-aways were and summarize what you learned.

Give your recommendation as to whether others should also read this text.

Explain any contributions the text made to your semester long project.

Rubric:

Provide a self assessment based on the following. Tell me how you think you did. No grade will

be provided without this.

Level of detail provided indicates student read the book 25

Submissable was adequate length and was as requested 25

Book completely outlined 10

Lessons learned and take-aways presented 10

Relation to semester long project or significant SE content 10

Report was submitted on time 10

Overall quality 10

Total Points Possible 100