Final

Out: 5 December 2002 Due: Tuesday, 10 December 2002, 4:30pm Turn in your exam at David Evans' office, Olsson 236A

Collaboration Policy (read carefully)

Work alone. You may consult any material you want including the course notes, text and additional sources (including anything you find on the Web). If you use a source other than the course materials or text, you should cite the source in your answer. However, you are not expected to research external materials. You should be able to answer this question well using only what you already know from the course.

You may not discuss this exam with any human, other than the course staff (who will answer clarification questions only). You may use any computer program you want during this exam.

There is no formal time limit for this exam, but it is not meant to be a research project. A well prepared student should be able to do an excellent job on this exam in about two hours. You should not spend more than five hours on this exam.

Your grade on the final with either: replace your grade on one of the exams, replace two of your problem set grades, or count as up to 50 bonus points. Whichever option is most beneficial to you will be selected. Based on the astrological guidance you received on Exam 2, you should be clear on whether or not it is necessary for you to do the final.

Question

Sun's 1995 Java report described the Java programming language as:

A simple, object-oriented, distributed, interpreted, robust, secure, architecture neutral, portable, high-performance, multithreaded, and dynamic language.

Select one of these characteristics, and write a short essay explaining how well Java attains those characteristics. We recommend selecting your characteristic from among: simple, robust, secure and object-oriented.

A good essay will describe how the selected characteristic related to good software engineering principles, and illustrate with specific examples how well the Java programming language satisfies that characteristic. Your essays will be graded primarily on how well they demonstrate your understanding of the software engineering principles covered in CS201J.

Your paper may be as short as you like, but not longer than four single-sided pages of reasonably sized text (that is, not much longer than the Declaration of Independence). If you think you need more space to answer this question than Mr. Jefferson did to start a revolution, create a new government, and establish basic human rights, you are probably overestimating the difficulty of the question or the importance of your writing.

You should read the Declaration of Independence, even though it is not about software engineering, since it will inspire you to write well.

Like the Declaration of Independence, your essay should identify some general principles (e.g., "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"), make some bold claims about how well a the Java programming language satisfies those principles (e.g.,"history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States"), and support your argument with specific examples (e.g., "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people"; in your case, the examples should probably be Java code excerpts).

Unlike the Declaration of Independence, your essay need only include a few examples but should explain them in more depth than Mr. Jefferson explains his examples in the Declaration. Your essay should not claim your position is self-evident — rather, you must support all your arguments with good technical evidence. Unlike Mr. Jefferson, you should be careful to avoid using sexist language in your essay.

The Declaration of Independence

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

References

Include citations (and links if available) to any materials you used in your paper other than the course readings. Mr. Jefferson didn't need to cite anyone else.

Collaborators

I stole the Declaration of Independence from Thomas Jefferson. Alas, all the ideas and writing in it are his, but many of them were adapted from earlier writers.

I stole the web transcription from the National Archives.

Mr. Jefferson collaborated with (or at least got signatures from): Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton (from Georgia); William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn (from North Carolina); Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton (from South Carolina); John Hancock (from Massachusetts); Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton (from Maryland); George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton (from Virginia); Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross (from Pennsylvania); Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean (from Delaware); William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris (from New York); Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark (from New Jersey); Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple (from New Hampshire); Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry (from Massachusetts); Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery (from Rhode Island); Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott (from Connecticut), and Matthew Thornton (from New Hampshire).

For your final essay you may not collaborate with any other humans.

Review

Court of King George III's Review of Mr. Jeffersons Proposal

University of Virginia Department of Computer Science CS 201J: Engineering Software

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation

cs201j-staff@cs.virginia.edu