Java Reference
In-Depth Information
software costs, you pay it because the consequences of not doing it perfectly are
far too high.
TIP
Our discussion is not meant to be scholarship on the topic of software develop-
ment methodology; instead, it is meant to show simple, basic processes that
can bring a reasonable amount of control to a software development project.
These steps are, to name a few, requirements gathering, specification, object
analysis, database design, development iteration (code, unit test, repeat),
and so on.
But most of us who write software do not deal with such consequences.
Most of us are keeping track of purchases and payments. We're recording pro-
duction data. We're tracking manifests and updating inventories. We are the
great unwashed mass of MIS software developers. Here we, too, want to do it
perfectly right. But every time we go to management and tell them how much
it will cost and how long it will take, the little “mass layoff” vein throbs in their
foreheads. We are always being told to do it faster and cheaper. And so we find
ourselves, again and again, tilting at the windmill of quality.
So where does that leave us? When we go to management with the text-
books of software engineering, they either laugh or scowl. Clearly, the money
people are not prepared to support the cost of doing it right. So what do you
do? The best that you can. The one thing we can tell you for certain is that the
formula for success is not “start writing code and trust to luck.”
It is fair to say that even the minimal software development method should
include the following steps:
• Requirements gathering
• Use case specification
• Class discovery and problem domain decomposition
• Technical requirements specification (architecturing)
• Testing
• Code and release management
• Production and operations support
• Bug and enhancement tracking
