CEN5087 Midterm Study Guide

What is Software?

• Models, Design, Tests

• A set of instructions (Programs)

What are characteristics of software?

Invisible
Complexity - size
Changeability - bugs, adding functionality, adapting

What is software crisis?

Low productivity
Poor quality
High Cost
High Demand

What is software engineering?

Process Products
Management Methods

What is software modeling?

Complexity - Abstraction (vertical)
Divide & Conquer (Horizontal)
Behavior
Functionality
Structure

Water Fall

System Engineering
Software Requirements Analysis
Software Design
Coding & Unit Testing
Integration & Integration testing
Acceptance Testing
Maintenance
(Can't go back up past Maintenance)

Water Fall Pros and Cons

\+Simple, Straight sequence of phases

\+It supports function-oriented project organization

\-Inflexible to requirement change

\-The system is outdated when delivered from long development duration

\-No early feedback from the users

\-May lose entire investment from customer if the project fails.

Rational Unified Process (RUP)

Inception: 1-2 iterations, produces a simplified use case model, a tentative architecture, and a project plan.
Elaboration: Produces the most critical use cases and architectural design
Construction: remaining use cases are implemented into the system
Transition: System is deployed, users are trained, and bugs are fixed

Agile Process Models

\+Flexibility

\+Immediate feedback

\-Scope creep

\-Time

\-Lack of predicitability

Functional Requirements

Statements of services the system should provide, how the system should react to particular inputs and how the system should behave in particular situations.

Non-functional requirements

Performance, reliability, usability, security, maintainability, quality.

Requirements Elicitation Approaches

Identifying problems and needs
Constructing analysis models to help understanding
Formulating system/software requirements
Conducting feasibility study
Checking the requirements and models for desired properties such as correctness, and consistency
Specifying acceptance tests
Formulating an iterative development plan

Use Cases

A business process that begins with an actor, ends with the actor, and accomplishes a business task useful for the actor.

Usually a circle.

Actors

Played by and on behalf of a set of business entities or stakeholders that are external to the system and interact with the system.

Usually a stick figure

System Boundary

It encloses the use cases and show the capabilities of the system.

Usually a box.

Inheritance

Indicates that one use case is more general/specialized than the other.

Notation: -

⇨

Extension

Indicates that one use case can optionally continue the process of another use case.

Notation
\----\>
<

Inclusion

Indicates that one use case includes another use case as part of its business process

\----\>
<

What is actor-system interaction modeling?

The modeling and design of how the system interacts with the actors to carry out the use cases. A two-column table that describes each interaction (actor input and system response)

Abstract Use Case

using a verb or noun phrase

High Level Use Case

stating exactly when and where the use case begins and when it ends. (This use case begins with, This use case ends with)

Expanded Use Case

describing step by step how the actor and system interact to accomplish the business task using a two-column table

Precondition

use case assumes that the actor has already taken action that does not directly interact with this use case

Postcondition

system changes based on the completion of use case

What are activity diagrams?

Diagrams that are a more understandable visual representation than textual description. Show use cases with multiple scenarios and use cases with concurrent activities.

What is a class?

An abstraction of objects with similar properties and behavior. A collection of objects.

Association Class

defines properties and operations for an association between two classes

What are the different type of class relationships?

Inheritance, Aggregation, Association

Inheritance Class Relationship

expresses the generalization/specialization relations between concepts. One concept is more general/specialized than the other. IS-A relationship

Example: Vehicle is a generalization of car, car is specialization of vehicle

Aggregation Class Relationship

expresses the fact that one object is part of another object. Also called PART-OF relationship

Example: engine is part of a car

Association Class Relationship

expresses general relationship other than inheritance and aggregation. Can be application specific relationships between two concepts

Example: instructor teach course, user has account

What is software architecture?

High-level system structural organization that consists of a collection of components, their interactions (connectors), and constraints.

Benefits of software architecture

Important because it helps with better understanding of the system and enables as early system level analysis. The "blueprint."
Facilitates maintenances and future system evolutions

What are the major types of software systems?

Interactive, event-driven, transformational, object-persistence

Interactive System

interaction between system and actor consists of a relatively fixed sequence of actor requests and system responses.

Actor and system have a "client-server" relationship.

System has to process and respond to each request.

Event-Driven System

interacts with more than one external entity at the same time.

Receives events from, and controls external entities

Does not need to respond to every incoming event. Its response is state dependent - the same event may result in different responses depending on system state

Transformational System

consist of a network of information-processing activities, transforming activity input to activity output

Activities may involve control flows that exhibit sequencing, conditional branching, parallel threads, synchronous and asynchronous behavior

systems may perform number crunching or computation intensive algorithms

Object-Persistence

Provides object storage and retrieval capabilities to other subsystems

Responsible only for storing and retrieving objects, and does little or no business processing except performance considerations

Hides implementation from the rest of system

Components

o define the computation logic and data organization: objects, databases, filters, clients, and servers

Connectors

define the interactions among components: procedure call, access protocol, and pipers

Constraints

define system level properties: pre-post conditions, safety properties, liveness properties