CSE 331: Topics

1. Specifications and Procedural Abstraction

Even when we are asking AI to write code for us, since AI cannot read our minds, it is important to be able to write a clear specification, stating in precise terms what that code needs to do. In this topic, we will discuss whole-program software specifications and method specifications.

Lecture 1: Sum.java
Homework 0
Lecture 2: Handout on method specifications and Handout with indexOf examples
Section 1 slides and solution slides and Section 1 worksheet and Section 1 solutions and Handout with removeValue examples
Homework 1. Change log:
- (6/27/26 5pm) Updated the starter code to describe the expected output format for Task 4. Please update to the most recent starter code or review the differences.
- (6/29/26 9am) Fixed the expected output values. The values contained in the expected output file were incorrectly computed by dropping 1 HW score instead of 2 as specified in categories.csv. This has now been fixed.

2. Testing & Interactive Programs

Testing gives us some confidence (though not complete confidence) that the implementation satisfies the specification by checking it on a well-designed set of test cases.

Lecture 3: Handout on testing
Lecture 4: Handout on more testing and code coverage
Lecture 5: Calculator.java and Handout on error handling and interactive programs
Section 2 slides and Section 2 solution slides and Section 2 worksheet and Section 2 solutions

3. Reasoning about Assertions

Reasoning is a technique programmers use to determine what is true at different points in the program. In this topic, we will study global (whole-program) and local (within one method) reasoning, and connect the two together.

Lecture 6: Handout on reasoning
Lecture 7: Handout on Floyd-Hoare logic
Section 3 slides and Section 3 solution slides and Section 3 worksheet and Section 3 solutions
Lecture 8: Handout on Loop Invariants

4. Abstract Data Types

Moving up the scale of program complexity from methods to classes, we discuss how to specify and reason about a class that does not expose its fields to clients. Since the clients don't know about the fields, the specifications must be written "abstractly", using some kind of description that makes sense to clients.