CSA Vocab

Software Development

Writing a program

Object-oriented program

uses interacting objects

Program specification

Description of a task

program design

A written plan, an overview of the solution

Program implementation

The code

Test data

Input to test the program

Program maintenance

Keeping the program working and up to date

Top-down development

Implement main classes first, subsidiary classes later

Independent class

Doesn’t use other classes of the program in its code

bottom-up development

Implement lowest level, independent classes first

Driver class

Used to test other classes; contains main method

inheritance relationship

Is-a relationship between classes

composition relationship

Has-a relationship between classes

inheritance hierarchy

Inheritance relationship shown in a tree-like diagram

UML Diagram

Tree-like representation of relationship between classes

data structure

Java construct for storing a data field(e.g. array)

data encapsulation

Hiding data fields and methods in a class

stepwise refinement

Breaking methods into smaller methods

Procedural abstraction

Using separate methods to encapsulate each task

algorithm

Step by step process that solves a problem

Stub method

Dummy method called by another method being tested

debugging

Fixing errors

robust program

screens out bad input

compile-time error

Usually a syntax error; prevents program from compiling

syntax error

Bad language usage (e.g. missing brace)

run-time error

Occurs during execution (e.g. int division by 0)

exception

Run-time error thrown by Java method

logic error

Program runs but does the wrong thing