Midterm Flashcards
What is software engineering?
The study of systematic and effective processes and technologies for supporting software development and maintenance activities
What are the different phases of software engineering?
Definition, Development, Maintenance, Umbrella Activities
What is the Definition phase of software engineering?
- Requirements definition and analysis
- Project planning
- System analysis
What is the Development phase of software engineering?
Software Design
- UI design
- High level design (define modular components and major data structures)
- Detailed design (define algorithms and procedural detail)
- Coding
- Integration
What is the Maintenance phase of software engineering?
- Correction: Fix software defects
- Adaption: Accommodate changes to new hardware and company policies
- Prevention: make more maintainable
- Enhancement: add functionality
What is the Umbrella Activities phase of software engineering?
- Reviews: assure quality
- Documentation: improve maintainability
- Version control: track changes
- Configuration management: integrity of collection of components
How is good software measured?
- The quality of the product
- The quality of the process
- The quality of the product in the context of the business environment
What is the CMM?
The Capability Maturity Model (CMM)
What are the 5 levels of the CMM?
- Level 1: Initial
- Level 2: Repeatable - track cost, schedule, functionality
- Level 3: Defined - standardized processes
- Level 4: Managed - collect detailed metrics
- Level 5: Optimizing - continuous process improvement, built in process improvement
What is a process?
a series of steps involving activities, constraints, and resources that produce an intended output of some kind
Is there iteration in the waterfall model?
no
What are some drawbacks of the waterfall model?
- Provides no guidance how to handle changes to products and activities during development (assumes requirements can be frozen)
- Views software development as manufacturing process rather than as creative process
- There is not iterative activities that lead to creating a final product
- Long wait before a final product
What does prototyping help?
- helps users understand what the system will be like (UI prototype)
- helps developers assess alternative design strategies (design prototype)
- useful for verification and validation
What is the V Model?
- variation of the waterfall model
- uses unit testing to verify procedural design
- uses integration testing to verify architectural (system) design
- uses acceptance testing to validate the requirements
- if problems are found during verification and validation, the left side of the v can be re-executed before testing on the right side is re-enacted
What is the Prototyping Model?
- Allows repeated investigation of the requirements or design
- Reduces risk and uncertainty in the development
What is the Operational Specification Model?
- Requirements are executed (examined) and their implication evaluated early in the development process
- Functionality and the design are allowed to be merged
What is the Transformational Model?
- Fewer major development steps
- Applies a series of transformations: change data representation, select algorithms, optimize, compile
- Relies on formalism
- Requires formal specification (to allow transformations)
What is the Phased Development: Increments and Iterations Model?
- Shorter cycle time
- system delivered in pieces (enables customers to have some functionality while the rest is being developed)
- allows two systems functioning in parallel (the production system currently being used and the development system)
What is incremental development?
starts with small functional subsystem and adds functionality with each new release
What is iterative development?
starts with full system, then changes functionality of each subsystem with each new release
What are the benefits of Phased Development?
- training can begin early, even though some functions are missing
- markets can be created early for functionality that has never before been offered
- frequent releases allow developers to fix unanticipated problems globally and quickly
- the development team can focus on different areas of expertise with different releases
What is the Spiral Model?
- combines development activities with risk management to minimize and control risks
- the model is presented as a spiral in which each iteration is represented by a circuit around four major activities
What are the 4 major activities in the Spiral Model?
1) plan
2) determine goals, alternatives, and constraints
3) evaluate alternatives and risks
4) develop and test
What do Agile Methods put emphasis on?
Emphasis on flexibility in producing software quickly and capably
What is the Agile manifesto?
- value individuals and interactions over process and tolls
- prefer to invest time in producing working software rather than in producing comprehensive documentation
- focus on customer collaboration rather than contract negotiation
- concentrate on responding to change rather than on creating a plan and then following it
What is a risk?
an unwanted event that has negative consequences
How do you quantify the effect of risks?
risk exposure = (risk probability)x(risk impact)
What are 3 strategies for risk reduction?
- Avoiding the risk: change requirements for performance or functionality
- Transferring the risk: transfer to other system, or buy insurance
- Assuming the risk: accept and control it
What is a functional requirement?
describes required behavior in terms of required activities
What is a non-functional requirement?
describes some quality characteristic that the software must possess
What is a requirements definition?
a complete listing of everything the customer wants to achieve
What is a requirements specification?
restates the requirements as a specification of how the proposed system shall behave
What is the difference between verification and validation?
verification ensures that we build the system right, whereas validation ensures that we build the right system
What are structural types of UML?
focus on static aspects of system
What are behavioral types of UML?
focus on dynamic aspects of system (changing parts)
What are the 4 paradigms of software engineering?
1) procedural
2) functional
3) logical
4) object oriented
What is a fault?
occurs when a human makes a mistake, called an error, in performing some software activities (doesn’t have to be coding)
What is a failure?
a departure from the system’s required behavior
What is analysis in software development?
decompose a large problem into smaller, understandable pieces
What is synthesis in software development?
build (compose) a software from smaller building blocks
What are the 4 key steps of requirements engineering?
1) elicitation
2) analysis
3) specification
4) validation
leads to a Software Requirements Specification (SRS)
