This half semester seminar will provide students an appreciation of the amount and form of automation available (commercial and internally developed) in support of the software development lifecycle. Students will learn how choosing an appropriate tool can dramatically improve their organizations productivity and quality, as well as gain an appreciation of how choosing the wrong tool can be disastrous to their organization. The intent of each class is to illustrate the pitfalls and opportunities for automation of the development process in a process specific area / phase. Each class will also feature a discussion on processes associated tool-based processes including cost benefit analysis, tool implementation success criteria, tool evaluations, piloting tools/ tool demos, and integrating a tool into an organizations development process. A typical class would include: - Overview of the process phase / activity to be covered - Presentation on what, and how, automation in this space can help software engineers - A review of tools in this space - Demo of a tool in this space - Discussion on pros and cons of tool support in this space Requirement: Completion of at least 1 semester (36 units) of Masters level courses.
