1.2.3 Software Development Flashcards
What is the Software development lifecycle (SDLC)?
A number of distinct phases programmers work through to develop a solution to a problem
What is feasibility?
-Whether or not the project can be done
-five factors must be considered (economic, time, technical, political, legal)
What is a requirement?
-A requirement is a specific feature of the new system and is recorded in a document called requirements specification
What are requirements broken down into?
Interface – how the user interacts with it.
Functional – what will the system do
Performance – how well/fast will the system respond
What is the analysis and design section?
-the process of taking the requirements of a new system and deciding what the system will look like, how will it store data and how it will process data
-Design can only go ahead once the requirements specification has been completed
Name the software development methodologies (5)
-waterfall
-RAD (rapid application development)
-spiral
-agile
-extreme programming
What is the waterfall lifecycle?
-Each phase has a well-defined start and end point with identifiable deliverables
-evolution of the waterfall model allows you to move backwards or forwards to a different stage as developers often have to rework earlier stages in light of knowledge gained as development progresses
What is the spiral model?
-risk-driven
-more of a guide for development teams, decisions on the software development methodology are made based on the risks identified
-it is wholly dependant on the project and its unique risks (not fixed)
What is RAD?
-that involves producing successive prototypes of the software until a final version is produced and approved
-increasingly refined prototypes are made with reduced functionality
-These are designed, coded, tested and evaluated with the end user
What is agile?
-The product is built in a series of iterations known as sprints
-sprints are short, time-boxed periods when a team has focused goals to complete a set amount of work
-Each sprint should ideally be a bite-sized piece of focused work, taking no longer than one to four weeks
What is extreme programming?
-not so much a software methodology as it is a framework
-considered an agile framework as it encourages regular, small, iterative software releases
-aims to produce very high-quality code and promote developers’ quality of life by encouraging them to adopt a set of common practices that focus on the values of:
-Simplicity
-Communication
-Feedback
-Courage
-Respect
What are the strict stages of the SDLC (9)
-Identify the problem
-Assess the feasibility: technical, economic, legal, operational, time
-Analyse the system
-Design a solution
-Code (implementation)
-Testing
-Go live: direct changeover, phased, parallel or pilot
-Evaluation
-Maintenance: adaptive and corrective
What are the five core practices that are considered to boost the overall quality of completed solutions for a project:
-Collective code ownership
-Continuous integration
-Code standards
-Refactoring
-Paired programming
Advantages of waterfall:
Disadvantages of waterfall:
Advantages of RAD:
Disadvantages of RAD:
Advantages of spiral:
Disadvantages of spiral:
Advantages of agile and extreme programming:
Disadvantages of agile and extreme programming:
HTML definition:
-Hypertext Markup Language, a standardized system for tagging text files to achieve font, color, graphic, and hyperlink effects on World Wide Web pages
-HTML elements consist of start and end tags with content in between
Basic HTML tags:
<html> </html>
= document begins and ends with
<body> </body>
= the main test begins
<h1> </h1>
= this is a heading
<p> </p>
= defines a paragraph
<head> </head>
= a container for metadata (data about data) that is place between the <html> and <body> tags
What is an algorithm?
-A sequence of steps designed to perform a task
What is pseudocode?
-an alternative, text-based method of representing the sequence of steps in an algorithm
-Pseudocode can be thought of as simplified programming code
What is this flowchart symbol?
What is this flowchart symbol?
Process
What is this flowchart symbol?
Decision
What is this flowchart symbol?
Input/Output
What is this flowchart symbol?
Subroutine
How do you use the HTML image tag?
<img></img>
<img embeds the image
Src: specifies the file path of the image.
Alt: specifies alternate text for the image in the event it cannot be displayed for some reason.
How do you link one page to another in HTMl?
<a> tag defines a hyperlink
href indicates the link’s destination
<a>TEXT</a></a>
What is CSS?
-Stands for Cascading Style Sheets
-Describes how HTML elements are to be displayed on screens, paper and other media
-CSS code can be directly inside an HTML file if it is defined inside a <style> tag, but will only affect the style of that page
-Using a separate style sheet, using the <link></link> tag, you can change the look of the entire site by amending one file</style>
Properties to know when using CSS:
-Background-color
-Border-color
-Border-style
-Border-width
-Color (named and hex colours)
-Font-family
-Font-size
-Height
-width
What is JavaScript?
-the programming language for the web, and it can be used to modify both HTML and CSS
-you can calculate, manipulate and validate data
What two JavaScript tags do you need to know?
<form> and
<script> are used to create HTML forms for user input </script></form>
<form> :
</form>
The <form> element can contain one or more of the following:
<input></input>
<textarea>
<button>
<select>
<option>
<optgroup>
<fieldset>
<label>
<output>
</output></label></fieldset></optgroup></option></select></button></textarea>
<script> : </script>
The actual JavaScript code is enclosed in a set of HTML
tags
JavaScript equivalents for the spec structures:
-Command lines are terminated with a semicolon.
-Curly brackets are used to define sections of code.
-Functions are defined.
-Variables are defined.
-For loops work.
-An array of inputs can be referred to.
-Variables are assigned values.
-An if condition can be used for selection.
-The output is returned to the page.
What are the different test strategies?
-Black-box testing
-White-box testing
-Alpha testing
-Beta testing
What is black box testing?
-Not concerned with how the program works, black-box testing simply checks whether an input produces the expected output
-code efficiency is not important
-this is often not feasible
What is white box testing?
-Involves testing the algorithms in the code and making sure all parts of those algorithms function as intended
-On each test run, the path of execution is noted so it can be compared with other runs
-also checks the overall efficiency of the code
When is alpha and beta testing carried out?
-when software is nearly ready for release and can be tested as a complete solution
What is alpha testing?
-Alpha testing typically occurs first and is limited internal employees and their friends and families
-often a very early version of the finished software, quite rough around the edges and may still contain a number of bugs
What is beta testing?
-Beta testing is usually opened up to a much wider community through a public beta program
-The program is in an almost-finished state
-The developers are looking to test areas like load balancing and multiple hardware compatibility
Suitable test data:
-no data: nothing has been entered
-erroneous: data that should be rejected
-invalid: data that should be rejected
normal: correct data type that should be accepted
boundary:correct data type that is on either edge of the accepted validation limits
What is a trace table?
-involves examining a printed extract of program code and running through the program
-Take each line at a time and write out the current state of each variable in a trace table, noting any output the program produces
-Each variable in the program should have its own column in the table
-A new row should be added if the state of a variable changes
Why is user feedback important?
-Keeps a project focused
-Makes sure you develop the actual system they need
-Provides opportunities for discussion
-Makes the user feel part of the finished solution
