Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
file, which contains all reported defects that have not yet been fixed. This, together
with suggestions for working around a portion of the product that may be
responsible for failure.
Maintenance programmers are assigned the task of determining the fault that
caused the failure and repairing it. There are three obstacles to maintenance of object-
oriented software. Hierarchy, Polymorphism and Dynamic binding, and fragile base
classes can cause issues for maintenance programmers. One way of handling this
problem is to start with the source code and attempt to re-create the design documents
or even the specifications. This process is called reverse engineering.
Metrics specific to post-delivery maintenance include measures relating to
software defects and reports with the total number of defect reports and classifi-
cation of defects.
11.15 Exercises
1. Why do you think that the mistake is frequently made of considering post-
delivery software maintenance to be inferior to software development?
2. Consider a product that determines whether a computer is virus free. Describe
why such a product is likely to have multiple variations of many of its code
artifacts. What are the implications for post-delivery maintenance? How can
the resulting problem be solved?
3. Repeat the problem 11.2 on automated library circulation system of problem.
4. Repeat problem 11.2 for the automated teller machine.
5. If you are a manager in charge of post-delivery maintenance in a large soft-
ware organization, what are the qualities you look for when hiring new
employees?
6. What are the implications of post-delivery maintenance for a one-person
software production organization?
7. Why is software maintenance is needed?
8. Why should the role of software architect and project leader be assigned to
different people?
9. Give an agenda for a project presentation on library circulation software.
10. Who should decide when software is ready to be released?
11. How can it be determined if a test environment is appropriate?
References
Barbacci M R, Ellison R, Lattanze A J, Stafford J A, Weinstock C B, Wood W G (2002) Quality
attribute workshops, 2nd edn. Technical Report CMU/SEI-2002-TR-019 019 ESC-TR-2002-019
Bruegge B, Dutoit A (1999) Object-oriented software engineering: conquering complex and
changing systems. Pearson Education, Ltd., Upper Saddle River
