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CS145 Lecture 26

What’s next?

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What’s next?

• What software questions do we study?

• Where is software headed?

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What software questions do we study

• Basic Questions• System Software• Network Software• Middleware• Information Systems• Scientific Computing

• Embedded and Real-Time Systems

• Graphics• Artificial Intelligence• Software

Engineering

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Basic Questions

• Data structures for storing and representing different kinds of application data– Some kinds of structures

• Maps (map one type of object to another)• Trees, Graphs• Sets

• Analysis of Algorithms– Time and space efficiency of algorithms and data structures

• Computer Architectures– How to make computers work better with various kinds of

software• Better = Faster, Cheaper, Less Power Consumption, etc.

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System Software

• System Software: Software that supports other kinds of software– As opposed to application software: Software that

faces the user

• Some kinds of system software:– Operating systems– Programming Languages

• Compilers and Virtual Machines

– Database Management Systems

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Network Software

• Supports communication between systems and software– Definition and Implementation of communication

protocols

• Interesting protocols– TCP/IP– HTTP (as opposed to HTML)– FTP– SSL

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Middleware

• Software that sits between systems and applications– Typically systems type software with more of an

application focus

• Some examples– Software for integrating different applications– Model Driven Architecture

• Build your integration software by drawing the right kinds of diagrams

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Information Systems

• Usually systems that support the operation of a business– More generally: Systems that store and manipulate

business kinds of information

• Some interesting areas:– Data Base (the organization of data, not the underlying

software)– Business applications

• ERP, CRS, …

– Business rules• Just describe the rules and the necessary software is

automatically generated

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Scientific Computing

• Large numeric computations for science and engineering applications

• Issues– Efficient algorithms for large computations– Efficient coordination of large computing resources

• Some examples– Predict the weather or climate– Wind tunnel– Simulate nuclear weapons– Protein folding

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Embedded and Real-Time Systems

• Control operation of machines, equipment, etc.

• Some issues– Operating systems supporting real-time (deadline)

processing• Examples

– Fly an airplane– Drive a car– Run a factory– Record a television program– Run the graphics card in your computer

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Graphics

• Generate realistic graphics (pictures, video) from digital descriptions

• Issues– Understanding how light interacts with physical

objects– Efficient algorithms

• Examples– Shrek, Gollum, Polar Express– Cleaning up old movies

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Artificial Intelligence

• Software and systems that behaves as if they were intelligent

• This is a large area with many subareas:– Rule based systems– Neural Network– Natural language processing– Evolutionary algorithms– Machine Learning– Robotics– Game playing– Proving Software Correct

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Software Engineering

• How to we go about building software?• Areas of interest

– Requirements, Requirements Management– Architecture and Design– Testing– Software Methodology and Process– Diagramming Software (e.g. UML)– Managing Building Software– Costing and Scheduling of Software Development

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Where is software headed?

• How good is your crystal ball?• Programming languages and systems

– Try to make software developers more efficient

• Artificial Intelligence– More “intelligent” systems

• Business applications– Standard “easily tailorable” applications

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Where is software headed? (continued)

• All areas– Make better use of increasing processing

power and storage capacity

• Software Engineering– “Software is always late and over budget”– Can we fix this?