Computer Science Accounts

Every student enrolled in CS414 must have an EID, which they use to login to RamWeb, Canvas, etc. However, every CS414 student is also automatically given a Computer Science login as well. If you were enrolled in CS courses prior to this semester, you may already know about these accounts.

Using departmental machines is optional. You can do all your work on your personal machines. Having a CS login gives you another option for accessing email from Computer Science machines. You can also connect to departmental machines to check whether or not your programs will run here. Using your CS account, you can get access to certain Microsoft applications, as described below.

Connecting to CS Machines

There are several linux machines named after state capitals (e.g., salem.cs.colostate.edu, denver, etc) that you can connect to. You must have an ssh client on your machine. For windows, you can install putty. Linux machines and macs come with ssh. A VPN is not required to connect to the CS machines.

You can transfer files from departmental machines to yours using sftp. You must connect to ftp.cs.colostate.edu and use your login and password.

Software Tools

You will need several tools in this course:

1. Java IDE

You can use any editor, compiler and runtime environment. One option is to install an editor (notepad, wordpad, emacs, vi, vim, etc), and use Sun's JDK and JRE to compile and run the programs. You are strongly encouraged to use the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment to do all the programming activities. The advantage is that Eclipse provides a good editor and debugger. It can also be integrated with version control software. Eclipse is the preferred IDE in our department. You can download Eclipse for free from here.

2. UML Drawing Tools

There are several tools available commercially and in the free software domain for drawing UML diagrams. Examples are Visio, Topcased, Eclipse-Omondo, ArgoUML, Poseidon, Visual Paradigm, and Rational Software Modeler. A list of some UML tools can be found on Wikipedia. Below is a select set of tools that support the modeling activities covered in our software engineering classes (e.g., CS314, CS414). Visio may be the best option for most of you. As long as you use a tool that exports diagrams to image files that can be inserted into a word / PDF document, you should be fine.

2.1 Visio

Microsoft Visio is installed on the Windows PCs in the department. You can also get it for free as described below.

Microsoft Imagine enables CSU Computer Science faculty members, undergraduate majors, graduate students, and certain classes to acquire software at minimal cost. Use your CS account user name and password to Log in to this website. Contact Paul Hansen (sna@cs.colostate.edu) if you have questions regarding access.

Anyone taking CS classes has a CS email account. Your CS email address is your CS login added to @cs.colostate.edu. Password is the same as your CS account. If you don't know your CS login, please send email to cs414@cs.colostate.edu.

Quick access to CS email is available here.

2.2 Topcased

A modeling environment developed as part of an EU project. It was built to primarily support the development of critical embedded software. You can download it from here.

2.3 Papyrus

Papyrus is intended to be the standard eclipse UML modeling environment. The UML features are similar to those found in Topcased. You can download it from here.

2.4 Visual Paradigm

Another option, which has both a free and a trial version (free, time-limited, but has more functionality) is Visual Paradigm's SDE.

This is a pretty good UML tool that integrates with Eclipse, JBuilder, and a few other IDEs. The more functional versions also provide code-generation, so this might help out with the implementation.

3. Version control

Version control and source code control is very useful when you are working in a team. Even if you are not, it still helps to be able to retrieve an older version of a file that used to work when the current version is lost or broken. You must use GitHub in your projects.