CS 3240 Software Engineering - MVC and REST

Flashcards created to review key concepts and terminology from Software Engineering lecture on MVC and REST.

Client-Server Architecture

A distributed application structure that partitions tasks or workloads between service providers (servers) and service requesters (clients).

Three-Tier Architecture

A software architecture pattern that separates an application into three layers: presentation, logic, and data.

MVC Pattern

Model-View-Controller; an architectural pattern that separates an application into three interconnected components.

Separation of Concerns

A principle for separating a computer program into distinct features that overlap in functionality as little as possible.

Statelessness (in REST)

A principle where no state information is stored in the server; each request from a client contains all the information needed to process that request.

Idempotency (in REST)

A property that ensures that executing the same operation multiple times results in the same state and response.

Addressable Resources

In REST, everything is represented as a resource identifiable by a URL.

Well-Defined Operations

In REST, the standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) define the operations that can be performed on resources.

Structured Data

Data that is organized in a predictable format, such as HTML, XML, or JSON, making it easily parseable.

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)

An architectural pattern based on the concept of services, where software components provide services to other components via a communication protocol.

Asynchronous Communication

A method of communication where sending and receiving can happen independently, allowing for non-blocking operations.

REST API

An application programming interface (API) that adheres to REST architectural constraints and enables interaction with RESTful services.

MVC Frameworks

Software frameworks that utilize the Model-View-Controller pattern to facilitate the development of user interfaces.

Functional Requirement

A specific behavior or function of a software system as defined by user requirements.

Synchronous internet

Blocking, execution of each operation depends on the one before and the task requires a response before moving on

Software entropy

as a software system ages, it becomes increasingly risky that a change to the existing software will result in unexpected problems or failure

System Architecture

Very high-level design for complex systems, often includes business processes

High-level(software architecture)

Modularity, internal interfaces, data sources and external interfaces

Low level design

Detailed algorithms and data structures

Generic web browswer

UI, Browser engine, rendering engine, data persistence, XML parser, networking, JavaScript interpreter and backend display

Peer-to-peer architecture pattern

Multiple computers, communicate through input and output over network

Layered architecture pattern

Organized hierarchically layers providing a service to layer above, layer acts as client to the layer below

Risk Management Cycle

Identify, Analyze, Prioritize, Plan, Mitigate, Monitor

Usability

Effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction

User centered design

Approach to design that involves the user a great deal, in many phases

Effectiveness

Accuracy and completeness in achieving goalsE

Efficiency

resources expended

Satisfaction

Comfort, acceptability

Persona

Description of archetypical, hypothetical and imaginary user

Data driven personas

created from user-reported usage data

5 E’s

Effective, efficient, engaging, easy to learn and error tolerant