Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
• The architecture liaisons document the public subsystem interfaces for which
they are responsible. This leads to a first draft of the ODD, which is used by
developers. The architecture liaisons and the core architect form the architect
team.
• The object designers refine and detail the interface specification of the class
or subsystem they implement.
• The configuration manager of a subsystem releases changes to the interfaces
and the ODD once they become available. The configuration manager also
keeps track of the relationship between source code and ODD revisions.
• Technical writers from the documentation team clean up the final version of
ODD. They ensure that the document is consistent from a structural and
content point of view. They also check for compliance with guidelines.
The architecture team is the integrating force of object design. The architecture
team ensures that changes are consistent with project goals. The documentation
team, including the technical writers, ensures that the changes are consistent with
the guidelines and conventions.
8.6.3 The Unified Process
The Unified Process is a life cycle for software engineering proposed by Booch,
Jacobson and Rumbaugh (Bruegge and Dutiot
2000
). Different from the spiral
model (the most common model used in OOD), it offers no names for the stages.
Instead it makes evident the parallel nature of the development progression by
referring to activities as workflows. A workflow is any activity in the development
process.
These parallel tasks allow for the stages of traditional development to run in
parallel. For instance, design and implementation may occur at the same time. In
this scenario the design process may provide feedback to the live and functioning
design team before their disbandment. This live interaction between teams pro-
vides more efficient and accurate changes to the project.
8.7 Objects as Models
UML notation provides a standard and widely accepted method for the description
of program constructs as a diagram. This diagram is easier to understand than code
entities, as it provides a visually appealing and intuitive interface to the workings
of what can be a complex and obfuscated source code. While new projects can be
modeled by engineers trained in UML and these diagrams can be translated to
code by hand, there exists the ability to forward and reverse engineer UML models
as objects.
