Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Standards
Better Software
Product
Requirements
Design
Coding
Te sting
Improved Software
Development
Processes
Figure 1..2
Better software processes make better software product.
the machine? Well, the machine is the development infrastructure including pro-
gramming language and development tools. Software engineers use these to make
the software.
Can we measure these processes of requirement gathering, software design,
software building, and software testing? Are there any standards that can measure
the quality of these processes? What could these standards be?
Before answering these questions, let us now discuss whether the same stan-
dards can be applied to all kinds of software development. If not, then are different
standards available for measuring different kinds of software? After all, we have
software products and applications for many purposes. We have software products
to be used by enterprises for business transactions. We have software products for
personal use. We have software products for embedded systems. We have software
products for managing product development. We have software products to be
used by the scientific community. In fact, software is so useful that it is increasingly
being used in all aspects of life and every day new areas are discovered to be served
by software products and applications.
These software products and applications are of different sizes and types and
are used differently. Naturally software processes to make these software products
cannot be the same. So can a one-size-fits-all philosophy be applied here? Definitely
not! You need different sets of processes to make these different kinds of software
products and applications. Although the top-level processes of requirement gath-
ering, software design, software build, and software testing will be the same, the
