A Computer Software Engineer develops software systems to be used by their clients, such as a website used to sell the client’s products. Although software engineers spend the majority of their time programming and testing the software, a key component to the success of a software engineer is the ability to write a thorough Software Requirement Specification (SRS). A SRS documents the requirements and dependencies needed for the software, prior to beginning any programming. Therefore, a Software Engineer must po The SRS is so important because engineers can have a wide scope of clients that they regularly work with. Audience A SRS documents the requirements and dependencies needed for the software, prior to beginning any programming. This document requires a two-way understanding that assures both the client and the engineer understand the needs and goals of the software. The first step in writing a SRS is understanding the client’s requirements, and then clearly documenting these requirements in terms the client can relate to. This is where correctly analyzing the client is very important on the engineer’s part because if the SRS is not right and the engineer did not understand the client, the program will not be what the client wants costing the company more time and money. Type of Writing and Communication According to the journal that was written by Lui et al., “correct understanding of the user’s requirements and appropriate design decisions almost always contribute considerably to the reliability of the software.” Appendix A shows not only the importance of the specification document, but also the importance that the specification document be reviewed and evolved several times before arriving at the final formal... ... middle of paper ... ...ware Requirements Specifications." IEEE Xplore. IEEE Computer Society, 1998. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.. LIU, SHAOYING, TETSUO TAMAI, and SHIN NAKAJIMA. "A Framework For Integrating Formal Specification, Review, And Testing To Enhance Software Reliability." International Journal Of Software Engineering & Knowledge Engineering 21.2 (2011): 259-288. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. S. El-Kassas, et al. "Formal Analysis And Design For Engineering Security Automated Derivation Of Formal Software Security Specifications From Goal-Oriented Security Requirements." IET Software 4.2 (2010): 149-160. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. Wan-kadir, and Pericles Loucopoulos. "Relating Evolving Business Rules to Software Design."Science Direct. Department of Computation and University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, July 2004. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.
The project has to assemble a set of requirements drafted out before hand, which will be used to decide if the overall result meets the satisfactory conclusion. The requirements are split into two categories, the so-called functional that will state what the system will do and the non-functional that will enunciate how the system will do it.
Sommerville, I. and Sawyer, P. (2000) Requirements Engineering: A good practice guide. Chichester: Lancaster University.
This phase is the main focus of the project managers and stake holders. Meetings with managers, stake holders and users are held in order to determine the requirements like; Who is going to use the system? How will they use the system? What data should be input into the system? What data should be output by the system? These are general questions that get answered during a requirements gathering phase. After requirement gathering these requirements are analyzed for their validity and the possibility of incorporating the requirements in the system to be development is also studied.
Software applications are powerful tools in the battle to make businesses more efficient and effective. Many have tried to make do with commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS), only to find that their specific needs demanded professionally developed software. Others insist on reinventing the wheel by developing software in areas where vendors are offering an already mature, reliable and relatively cheap version to buy.
Once customer requirements have been captured and analyzed, information of customer requirements needs to be translated into functional specifications and design. This activity involves marketing function, product designers and engineers.
Flynn, Donal J.; "Information Systems Requirements: Determination and Analysis"; McGraw-Hill Book Company; 1992Parnas; 1985; taken from: Sherer, Susan A.; "Software Failure Risk – Measurement and Management"; Plenum Press; 1992Jones, Carpers; "Patterns of Software Systems Failure and Success"; Thomson computer press; 1996Neumann, Peter G.; "Computer Related Risks"; Addison-Wesley publishing company; 1995Petroski, Henry; "To Engineer is Human"; MacMillan Publishing; 1985Flowers, Stephen; "Software failure: management failure"; Chichester: John Wiley and Sons; 1996.Report of the Inquiry into the London Ambulance Service; February 1993. Simpson, Moira (1994); "999!: My computers stopped breathing !"; The Computer Law and Security Report, 10; March – April; pp 76-81Dr. Dobbs Journal; January 1997 edition<a href="http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks">http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks<a href="http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk ">http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/sections/travel">http://abcnews.go.com/sections/travel
Insightfully mapping out the technological advancements in software development from its beginnings somewhere in the late 1940’s to the current modern age. There is more than enough compelling evidence that software technology has laid a strong impact on all economic and social aspects of our modern day living. Thus, a systematic approach towards high quality software development is required due to an increasingly quality oriented market and competitive business world.
A documentation framework is essential for any large project; hence, RUP describes how to document functionality, constraints, design decisions and business requirements. Use Cases and Scenarios, are examples of artifacts prescribed by the process and have been found to be very effective at both capturing functional requirements and providing coherent threads throughout the development and deployment of the system.
Xi Wang, Liang Guo, Huaikou Miao, “An Approach to Transforming UML Model to FSM Model for Automatic Testing” in 2008 International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering
Software architect of the computer age. (2010, June 8). Retrieved from http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/gat0bio-1 on April 3, 2014
..., Handling, storage, packaging, preservation, and delivery, Control of quality records, Internal quality audits, Training, Servicing and also Statistical techniques. All standards apply to all types of industry sector whether they are large or small industry and also including design, manufacturing, service, research, development and also education. Unfortunately, this wide applicability also became a weakness of the model especially in the software development and maintenance industry. This is because, it is difficult in defining a common language that everyone in the industry sector can truly understand and apply. To compensate those problem ISO had published a new guideline specifically for software development that was ISO 9000-3.
The Unified Modeling Language is a standard language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting the artifacts of software systems, as well as for business modeling and other non-software systems. The key is to organize the design process in a way that clients, analysts, programmers and other involved in system development can understand and agree on. The UML provides the organization. The UML was released in 1997 as a method to diagram software design, by some of the best minds in object oriented analysis and design. It is by far the most exciting thin to happen to the software industry in recent years. Every other engineering discipline has a standard method of documentation. Electronic engineers have schematic diagrams; architects and mechanical engineers have blueprints and mechanical diagrams. The software industry now has UML.
My experience on different development and testing strategies, coupled with ideas and skills to implement my knowledge along with long term aim of identifying and starting my own venture makes me a strong candidate for research studies in the field of ‘Software Engineering’.
A software system is built based on the requirements. Therefore requirement elicitation is an important aspect. Functional requirements outline what the system do in order to achieve its goal. A functional requirement is an action which is performed by user / system to achieve a specific goal. The authors Marianne Mathiassen and had developed the Tasks & Support method, which uses annotated task descriptions. As per authors using this process computer and user shall accomplish together without indicating which actor performs.
In our modern society, software has become a very critical component in all kinds of systems and software failures have become the most vital factor that terminates the service and proper function of the whole system. Therefore, it is very important and urgent to understand the software development process and eliminate as many potential problems in software as possible.