Analysis and design form the basis on any significant software artifact. Analysis is critical in terms of making sure that the final artifact actually meets user requirements (ie building the right software).
Design is critical in terms of making sure that the software achieves that aim (ie building the software right), and also in terms of utilizing large programming teams effectively.
The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a set of notational conventions that allow analysis and design concepts to be consistently and coherently documented. The standardization of analysis and design notation allows the results of analysis and design to be effectively communicated to other members of a programming team, to other stakeholders and later, to other programmers charged with maintenance and modification of the original software.
Object oriented programming is a programming methodology specifically designed to facilitate the creation of complex software, and also to facilitate reuse of existing software components. However, the design of object oriented software is not simple. Considerable experience has been developed in the two decades object oriented programming has been in widespread use and this experience has started to become crystallized in the form of ‘design patterns'. Design patterns are common, well tried and tested ways of solving certain common software problems.
Object oriented software design is a wider field and more complicated than simple object modeling of business or scientific systems. It involves the integration of such models with human-computer interfaces, the data storage mechanisms used to access and persist any data involved, and the adaptation of the application to the specific hardware and software used to support the application. This unit is an introduction to these vast topics. While any one of the topics covered in the unit could easily form the basis of a unit in its own right, the constraints of the courses the unit serves require that all these topics are covered in this unit alone.
As you can probably tell, this preamble is gradually working its way around to saying that this is not an easy unit. In fact this is a hard unit. There is a lot of material to cover, a lot of reading, and many new concepts will be introduced. Try to keep pace with the unit delivery since it will be very difficult to catch up if you fall behind. Put in the recommended number of study hours (ie 10 hours per week).