LAL-info documentation

spot

The primary purpose of this lecture is to explore various computer science technologies which are exercized through:

• the conception,
• the building,
• and the development

of a complex application like those developed in an actual scientific collaboration.

Throughout this lecture, the following items will be investigated:

• configuration management tools for software building (how to structure a project and automate its construction),
• version control management tools to track and log modifications to a piece of code or a whole project,
• automated documentation generator,
• object oriented programming and leveraging C++ and its Standard Template Library
• definition of data structures to handle the data generated by an application,
• interactions between various components using themselves various and different technologies.

A graphical application loosely inspired from an actual scientific imaging application, will be used throughout this lecture to back our exploration.

Agenda

Day 1	Bootstrapping the tools, first steps with C++ programmation: bootstrap C++ development environment versions management, discover subversion (svn) read a structured data file containing a picture	Introduction (En) Outils - Tools Subversion Good practices I/O (En)
Day 2	read a structured data file containing a picture discover the Qt framework	Doxygen STL (En) C++ classes (En) Memory handling (En) C++ ops, fcts (En) Qt
Day 3	classes and graphical shapes development within DrawQt	DrawQt Inheritance, polymorphism (En)
Day 4	structured data: reading geometrical shapes
Day 5 and more	projects

The various steps which will be followed on during this hands-on:

1. presentation of development tools and tools to ease the development: make, CMT, C++, ...
2. build of a small C++ application to introduce the use of input/output (I/O) and of the standard library (STL)
3. introduction to a graphical framework
4. interconnect the user interface and the C++ user code. Study the whole connection chain (create a shared library, declare C++ modules in the GUI, automatization with CMT)
5. definition of data structures to store graphical scenes. Definition of classes, creation of collections (leveraging STL)
6. definition of a file storage format. Elaborate save-and-reload functions for the graphical scenes.

Bootstrapping

The first steps on how:

• to login
• to change your password
• to launch applications

are described on this page.

Grading

Your work will be graded considering the following 3 items:

1. quality of the produced code (8 pts):

• choice and respect of coding conventions
• choice of variables, methods, classes, ... naming
• code clarity
• usage of Doxygen

2. usage of tools (8 pts)

• CMT
• Subversion to manage and monitor the evolution of your work (regular, logical commits with sensible comments)
• Doxygen to document your code
• tests of the code in a dedicated directory (with svn use)

3. the quality of work invested in the hands-on sessions as well as its progression (4 pts)

CS hands-on at LAL

• 1. Introduction to C++
  • 1.1. Step 1: prepare your workarea (15 mins)
  • 1.2. Step 2: building a simple application (1h)
  • 1.3. Step 3: Familiarization with C++ (2h)
  • 1.4. A few references
• 2. First steps with subversion (svn)
  • 2.1. Reminder
  • 2.2. Creating your project repository (15 min)
  • 2.3. Initializing the workarea environment (15 min)
  • 2.4. Modifying files (5 min)
  • 2.5. Listing modifications (15 min)
  • 2.6. Visualizing the differences (15 min)
  • 2.7. Rolling back to a previous revision (45 min)
  • 2.8. Resurrecting a deleted file (20 min)
  • 2.9. Using a branch (30 min)
  • 2.10. Using a tag (10 min)
  • 2.11. Parting notes
• 3. Reading an image from a file
  • 3.1. Step 1: environment configuration (20 min)
  • 3.2. Step 2: Accessing a data file (20 min)
  • 3.3. Step 3: reading the data file token-by-token (30 min)
  • 3.4. Step 4: creating a class named Image (15 min)
  • 3.5. Step 5: isolate the reading of a file in a dedicated method (1h)
  • 3.6. Step 6: interpreting the data from the image file (1h)
  • 3.7. Step 7: data storage (45 min)
  • 3.8. Step 8: documenting the package Image (45 min)
• 4. Managing a graphical interface with Qt
  • 4.1. Step 1: a first Qt application (5 min)
  • 4.2. Step 2: attaching a signal/slot to a button (10 min)
  • 4.3. Step 3: adding a menu (15 min)
  • 4.4. Step 4: adding a new slot (15 min)
• 5. DrawQt
  • 5.1. Step 1: installation (30 min)
  • 5.2. Step 2: reading the documentation (10 min)
  • 5.3. Step 3: building the application (20 min)
  • 5.4. Step 4: reading an image (1h30)
  • 5.5. Step 5: support for an elliptical shape (1h30)
  • 5.6. Step 6: support for a square shape (1h)
  • 5.7. Step 7: support for a circular shape (1h)
  • 5.8. Step 8: make a tag for your current work
• 6. Reading a file of shapes
  • 6.1. Bootstrapping
  • 6.2. Step 1: adding the declaration of the new methods (45 min)
  • 6.3. Step 2: implementing the keywords reading method (45 min)
  • 6.4. Step 3: completing the reading method (1h30)
  • 6.5. Step 4: reading the content of a shape (25 min)
  • 6.6. Step 5: error handling (2-3h)
  • 6.7. Step 6: saving shapes (3-4h)
• 7. Projects
• 8. Appendix
  • 8.1. Using the terminal under MacOS X
  • 8.2. Compilation errors
  • 8.3. CMT: a tool for the configuration management
  • 8.4. Inputs/Outputs (I/O) in C++
  • 8.5. Structure and format of the image and shapes files
  • 8.6. STL: the (C++) standard template library
  • 8.7. Introduction to make
  • 8.8. FAQ

• Work in progress ...

• Slides
  • Intro-en