28006 - Foundations of Informatics T-2

Academic Year 2017/2018

  • Docente: Enrico Denti
  • Credits: 12
  • SSD: ING-INF/05
  • Language: Italian
  • Moduli: Enrico Denti (Modulo 1) Gabriele Zannoni (Modulo 2) Roberta Calegari (Modulo 3)
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures (Modulo 1) Traditional lectures (Modulo 2) Traditional lectures (Modulo 3)
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Electrical Energy Engineering (cod. 8610)

    Also valid for First cycle degree programme (L) in Computer Engineering (cod. 0926)

Learning outcomes

The course aims to provide an in-depth concptual & practical knowedlge about the basics concepts, methodologies, technologies and tools for the design and development of applications according to the object-oriented paradigm.
The Java language and platform is adopted for this purpose: at the same time, a comparison with the C# language and .NET platform is carried out for most of the topics of the course.

Course contents

Basic concepts of programming languages. Language families -- imperative, functional, logic, and object-oriented languages. Introduction to software design: software components, abstract data types, objects. Basic concepts of the Java language and architecture: classes, instances, object construction and deletion, inheritance, polymorphism. Abstract classes, interfaces, multiple inheritance. Exceptions and exception handling. I/O streams and file access, object serialization. Data structures: lists, hashmaps, trees and related algorithms: such structures are considered both as Java collections and as user-designed data types -- according to both a procedural and an object-oriented approach. Basic elements for GUI construction in Java on the JavaFX platform: event-driven programming, event listeners.

Readings/Bibliography

Please see the course's web portal.

Teaching methods

Powerpoint slides (whose PDF printouts are available from the teacher's Web portal before the corresponding lecture) are projected and discussed during class hours, thus avoiding students the burden of taking notes all the time, letting them focus on the discussed concepts.
Exercises are continuously interleaved with theoretical concepts and immediately shown 'on line' from the teacher's notebook.
This course (Module 1) is strictly integrated with the other parallel course (Module 2), which is mainly devoted to lab experiments and exercises under the tutor's guide, both in groups and as individual activities: each week, a task is assigned to be completed during the lab session. Its resolution tests the students' ability in the concepts explained in the previous weeks.

Assessment methods

Assessment is achieved both as self-evaluation in the lab sessions systematically proposed during the course, and as a final examination, which is integrated for both Module 1 and Module 2.
The lab tests during the course do not replace the final examination, nor do they contribute to the final evaluation, given their purpose of allowing students to self-evaluate.
The final examination consists in the practical implementation of the solution to a practical medium-size problem in the lab: during the test, students can freely consult books, manuals, on-line slides and resources in order to provide a solution to the proposed application problem. The solution can be considered for correction and evaluation only if it is compiled by the Java compiler: if compilation fails, the test is not passed, regardless of any other consideration. If it compiles, the proposed solution is evaluated, taking into account in particular its conformity to the problem specification.
Once the lab test has been passed, the student is admitted to the oral discussion, which is mainly (but not exclusively) devoted to discuss the approach and solution of the lab test. The oral discussion is normally waived if the lab test is passed with a score of at least 23/30.

Teaching tools

The teacher's web portal provides updated information, copy of the slides projected and discussed during the lecture hours, some extra material, and suggested books.

Links to further information

http://enricodenti.disi.unibo.it

Office hours

See the website of Enrico Denti

See the website of Gabriele Zannoni

See the website of Roberta Calegari