CT-365 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

LECTURE 1

INTRODUCTION

HUMA TABASSUM
LECTURER
DEPT. OF COMPUTER SCIENCE & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
NED UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY
Software Project Failure
• Increasing system complexity
• As new software engineering techniques help us to build larger, more
complex systems, the demands change. Systems have to be built and
delivered more quickly; larger, even more complex systems are required;
systems have to have new capabilities that were previously thought to be
impossible.
• Failure to use software engineering methods
• It is fairly easy to write computer programs without using software
engineering methods and techniques. Many companies have drifted into
software development as their products and services have evolved. They do
not use software engineering methods in their everyday work. Consequently,
their software is often more expensive and less reliable than it should be.

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Software Engineering
• Software engineering is an engineering discipline that is concerned
with all aspects of software production from the early stages of
system specification through to maintaining the system after it has
gone into use.
• Engineering discipline
• Using appropriate theories and methods to solve problems bearing in mind
organizational and financial constraints.
• All aspects of software production
• Not just technical process of development. Also project management and the
development of tools, methods etc. to support software production.

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Importance of Software Engineering
• More and more, individuals and society rely on advanced software
systems.
• We need to be able to produce reliable and trustworthy systems
economically and quickly.
• It is usually cheaper, in the long run, to use software engineering
methods and techniques for software systems rather than just write
the programs as if it was a personal programming project.
• For most types of system, the majority of costs are the costs of
changing the software after it has gone into use.

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Essential Attributes of Good Software
Product characteristic Description

Maintainability Software should be written in such a way so that it can evolve to

meet the changing needs of customers. This is a critical attribute
because software change is an inevitable requirement of a
changing business environment.
Dependability and Software dependability includes a range of characteristics
security including reliability, security and safety. Dependable software
should not cause physical or economic damage in the event of
system failure. Malicious users should not be able to access or
damage the system.
Efficiency Software should not make wasteful use of system resources such
as memory and processor cycles. Efficiency therefore includes
responsiveness, processing time, memory utilisation, etc.

Acceptability Software must be acceptable to the type of users for which it is

designed. This means that it must be understandable, usable and
compatible with other systems that they use.

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Software Engineering Fundamentals
• Some fundamental principles apply to all types of software system,
irrespective of the development techniques used:
• Systems should be developed using a managed and understood development
process.
• Of course, different processes are used for different types of software.
• Dependability and performance are important for all types of system.
• Understanding and managing the software specification and requirements
(what the software should do) are important.
• Where appropriate, you should reuse software that has already been
developed rather than write new software.

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General Issues that Affect Software
• Heterogeneity
• Increasingly, systems are required to operate as distributed systems across
networks that include different types of computer and mobile devices.
• Business and Social Change
• Business and society are changing incredibly quickly as emerging economies
develop and new technologies become available. They need to be able to
change their existing software and to rapidly develop new software.
• Security and Trust
• As software is intertwined with all aspects of our lives, it is essential that we
can trust that software.
• Scale
• Software has to be developed across a very wide range of scales, from very
small embedded systems in portable or wearable devices through to Internet-
scale, cloud-based systems that serve a global community. 9
FAQs about Software Engineering
Question Answer

What is software? Computer programs and associated documentation.

Software products may be developed for a particular
customer or may be developed for a general market.
What are the attributes of good software? Good software should deliver the required functionality
and performance to the user and should be
maintainable, dependable and usable.
What is software engineering? Software engineering is an engineering discipline that is
concerned with all aspects of software production.
What are the fundamental software Software specification, software development, software
engineering activities? validation and software evolution.
What is the difference between software Computer science focuses on theory and fundamentals;
engineering and computer science? software engineering is concerned with the practicalities
of developing and delivering useful software.
What is the difference between software System engineering is concerned with all aspects of
engineering and system engineering? computer-based systems development including
hardware, software and process engineering. Software
engineering is part of this more general process.

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FAQs about Software Engineering
Question Answer
What are the key challenges facing Coping with increasing diversity, demands for reduced
software engineering? delivery times and developing trustworthy software.
What are the costs of software Roughly 60% of software costs are development costs,
engineering? 40% are testing costs. For custom software, evolution
costs often exceed development costs.
What are the best software engineering While all software projects have to be professionally
techniques and methods? managed and developed, different techniques are
appropriate for different types of system. For example,
games should always be developed using a series of
prototypes whereas safety critical control systems require
a complete and analyzable specification to be developed.
You can’t, therefore, say that one method is better than
another.
What differences has the web made to The web has led to the availability of software services
software engineering? and the possibility of developing highly distributed service-
based systems. Web-based systems development has led
to important advances in programming languages and
software reuse.

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Software Application Types
• Stand-Alone Applications
• These are application systems that run on a local computer, such as a PC. They
include all necessary functionality and do not need to be connected to a network.
• Interactive Transaction-based Applications
• Applications that execute on a remote computer and are accessed by users from
their own PCs or terminals. These include web applications such as e-commerce
applications.
• Embedded Control Systems
• These are software control systems that control and manage hardware devices.
• Batch processing systems
• These are business systems that are designed to process data in large batches.
They process large numbers of individual inputs to create corresponding outputs.
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Software Application Types
• Entertainment Systems
• These are systems that are primarily for personal use and which are intended
to entertain the user.
• Systems for Modeling and Simulation
• These are systems that are developed by scientists and engineers to model
physical processes or situations, which include many, separate, interacting
objects.
• Data Collection Systems
• These are systems that collect data from their environment using a set of
sensors and send that data to other systems for processing.
• Systems of Systems
• These are systems that are composed of a number of other software systems.
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Software Process Activities
• Software Specification, where customers and engineers define the
software that is to be produced and the constraints on its operation.
• Software Development, where the software is designed and
programmed.
• Software Validation, where the software is checked to ensure that it
is what the customer requires.
• Software Evolution, where the software is modified to reflect
changing customer and market requirements.

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Software Process Models
• A software process model is an abstract representation of a process.
• It presents a description of a process from some particular perspective.
• Plan-driven processes are processes where all of the process activities
are planned in advance and progress is measured against this plan.
• In agile processes, planning is incremental and it is easier to change
the process to reflect changing customer requirements.
• In practice, most practical processes include elements of both plan-
driven and agile approaches.
• There are no right or wrong software processes.

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 Waterfall Model
• Plan-driven model.
• Separate and distinct phases of specification
and development.
• In principle, a phase has to be complete
before moving onto the next phase.
• Inflexible partitioning of the project into
distinct stages makes it difficult to
respond to changing customer
requirements.
• The waterfall model is mostly used for
large systems engineering projects where
a system is developed at several sites.
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 Incremental Development
• The cost of accommodating changing
customer requirements is reduced.
• It is easier to get customer feedback on the
development work that has been done.
• More rapid delivery and deployment of useful
software to the customer is possible.
• System structure tends to degrade as new
increments are added.
• Unless time and money is spent on refactoring to
improve the software, regular change tends to
corrupt its structure.

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Spiral Model
• The Spiral Model is a combination of the
waterfall model and the iterative model.
• It provides support for Risk Handling.
• The exact number of loops of the spiral is
unknown and can vary from project to project.
• Each loop of the spiral is called a phase of the
software development process.
• The Spiral model is called a Meta-Model
because it subsumes all the other models.
• It is often used for complex and large projects,
as it provides flexibility in requirements and
increases customer satisfaction.
• However, it is complex, expensive, and
resource and time-consuming. 18
 Prototyping
• A prototype is an initial version of a system
used to demonstrate concepts and try out
design options.
• A prototype can be used in:
• The requirements engineering process to help
with requirements elicitation and validation;
• In design processes to explore options and Prototype Development
develop a UI design;
• In the testing process to run back-to-back tests.
• Benefits include
• Improved system usability.
• A closer match to users’ real needs.
• Improved design quality.
• Improved maintainability.
• Reduced development effort. Throw-Away Prototype 19
Agile Development
• Program specification, design and
implementation are inter-leaved.
• The system is developed as a series
of versions or increments with
stakeholders involved in version
specification and evaluation.
• Frequent delivery of new versions
for evaluation.
• Extensive tool support for
development.
• Minimal documentation – focus on
working code.
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Methods: eXtreme Programming
• eXtreme programming (XP) takes an ‘extreme’ approach to iterative
development.
• New versions may be built several times per day;
• Increments are delivered to customers every 2 weeks;
• All tests must be run for every build and the build is only accepted if tests run
successfully.

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Extreme Programming Practices (a)
Principle or practice Description
Incremental planning Requirements are recorded on story cards and the stories to be
included in a release are determined by the time available and
their relative priority. The developers break these stories into
development ‘Tasks’. See Figures 3.5 and 3.6.

Small releases The minimal useful set of functionality that provides business
value is developed first. Releases of the system are frequent
and incrementally add functionality to the first release.

Simple design Enough design is carried out to meet the current requirements
and no more.
Test-first development An automated unit test framework is used to write tests for a
new piece of functionality before that functionality itself is
implemented.
Refactoring All developers are expected to refactor the code continuously as
soon as possible code improvements are found. This keeps the
code simple and maintainable.
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Extreme Programming Practices (b)
Pair programming Developers work in pairs, checking each other’s work and
providing the support to always do a good job.
Collective ownership The pairs of developers work on all areas of the system, so that
no islands of expertise develop and all the developers take
responsibility for all of the code. Anyone can change anything.
Continuous integration As soon as the work on a task is complete, it is integrated into
the whole system. After any such integration, all the unit tests in
the system must pass.
Sustainable pace Large amounts of overtime are not considered acceptable as
the net effect is often to reduce code quality and medium term
productivity
On-site customer A representative of the end-user of the system (the customer)
should be available full time for the use of the XP team. In an
extreme programming process, the customer is a member of
the development team and is responsible for bringing system
requirements to the team for implementation.
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 Methods: Scrum
• Scrum focuses on managing iterative development rather than specific
agile practices.
• There are three phases in Scrum.
• The initial phase is an outline planning phase where you establish the general
objectives for the project and design the software architecture.
• This is followed by a series of sprint cycles, where each cycle develops an increment
of the system.
• The project closure phase wraps up the project, completes required
documentation such as system help frames and user manuals and assesses the
lessons learned from the project.

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Scrum Terminology (a)
Scrum term Definition

Development team A self-organizing group of software developers, which should be no more than
7 people. They are responsible for developing the software and other
essential project documents.
Potentially shippable The software increment that is delivered from a sprint. The idea is that this
product increment should be ‘potentially shippable’ which means that it is in a finished state and
no further work, such as testing, is needed to incorporate it into the final
product. In practice, this is not always achievable.

Product backlog This is a list of ‘to do’ items which the Scrum team must tackle. They may be
feature definitions for the software, software requirements, user stories or
descriptions of supplementary tasks that are needed, such as architecture
definition or user documentation.

Product owner An individual (or possibly a small group) whose job is to identify product
features or requirements, prioritize these for development and continuously
review the product backlog to ensure that the project continues to meet critical
business needs. The Product Owner can be a customer but might also be a
product manager in a software company or other stakeholder representative.
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Scrum Terminology (b)
Scrum term Definition
Scrum A daily meeting of the Scrum team that reviews progress and prioritizes
work to be done that day. Ideally, this should be a short face-to-face
meeting that includes the whole team.

ScrumMaster The ScrumMaster is responsible for ensuring that the Scrum process is
followed and guides the team in the effective use of Scrum. He or she is
responsible for interfacing with the rest of the company and for ensuring
that the Scrum team is not diverted by outside interference. The Scrum
developers are adamant that the ScrumMaster should not be thought of
as a project manager. Others, however, may not always find it easy to
see the difference.

Sprint A development iteration. Sprints are usually 2-4 weeks long.

Velocity An estimate of how much product backlog effort that a team can cover in
a single sprint. Understanding a team’s velocity helps them estimate
what can be covered in a sprint and provides a basis for measuring
improving performance.

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Agile Applicability
• Product development where a software company is developing a
small or medium-sized product for sale.
• Virtually all software products and apps are now developed using an agile
approach.
• Custom system development within an organization, where there is a
clear commitment from the customer to become involved in the
development process and where there are few external rules and
regulations that affect the software.
• Criticisms:
• Unrealistic assumption where much of the actual development is off-shored,
outsourced.
• “Programmers gone wild” environment, since it is not carefully managed.
• Concerns on suitability to deliver large mission-critical systems. 27
In Conclusion…

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