COMP 312: Software Engineering-II

Overview Software Engineering

Software Engineering is the set of processes and tools to develop software. Software
Engineering is the combination of all the tools, techniques, and processes that used in
software production. Therefore Software Engineering encompasses all those things that
are used in software production like:

- Programming Language
- Programming Language Design
- Software Design Techniques
- Tools
- Testing
- Maintenance
- Development etc.

So all those thing that are related to software are also related to software engineering.

Well Engineered Software

Well-engineered software is one that has the following characteristics.
- It is reliable
- It has good user-interface
- It has acceptable performance
- It is of good quality
- It is cost-effective
The major challenges for a software engineer is that he has to build software
within limited time and budget in a cost-effective way and with good quality

Therefore well-engineered software has the following characteristics.

• Provides the required functionality
• Maintainable
• Reliable
• Efficient
• User-friendly
• Cost-effective

But most of the times software engineers ends up in conflict among all these
goals. It is also a big challenge for a software engineer to resolve all these
conflicts.

Software related activities includes;

 Project Management
 Requirement Engineering
 Design
 Coding
 Testing
 Software Quality Assurance

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  Software Configuration Management
 Software Integration
Note: Software Engineering is nothing but a disciplined and systematic approach to software
development.

The activities involved in software development can broadly be divided into two
major categories.

i) Construction
The construction activities are those that directly related to the development of
software, e.g. gathering the requirements of the software, develop design,
implement and test the software etc. Some of the major construction activities
are listed below.

• Requirement Gathering
• Design Development
• Coding
• Testing

ii) Management

Management activities are kind of umbrella activities that are used to smoothly
and successfully perform the construction activities e.g. project planning,
software quality assurance etc. Some of the major management activities are
listed below.

• Project Planning and Management

• Configuration Management
• Software Quality Assurance
• Installation and Training

Software Lifecycle Models

Recalling from our first course, a software system passes through the following phases:

1. Vision – focus on why

2. Definition – focus on what
3. Development – focus on how
4. Maintenance – focus on change

During these phases, a number of activities are performed. A lifecycle model is a series of steps through which
the product progresses. These include requirements phase, specification phase, design phase, implementation
phase, integration phase, maintenance phase, and retirement. Software Development Lifecycle Models depict the
way you organize your activities.

There are a number of Software Development Lifecycle Models, each having its strengths
and weaknesses and suitable in different situations and project types. The list of models
includes the following:

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 • Build-and-fix model
• Waterfall model
• Rapid prototyping model
• Incremental model
• Extreme programming
• Rapid Application Development
• Spiral model
• Rational Unified Process(RUP)- Object Oriented

Software Reuse
In most engineering disciplines, systems are designed by composing existing
components that have been used in other systems. Software engineering has
been more focused on original development but it is now recognized that to
achieve better software, more quickly and at lower cost, we need a design
process that is based on systematic software reuse. There has been a major
switch to reuse-based development over the past 10 years.

Scale of software reuse:

 System reuse: Complete systems, which may include several application
programs.
 Application reuse: An application may be reused either by incorporating it
without change into other or by developing application families.
 Component reuse: Components of an application from sub-systems to
single objects may be reused.
 Object and function reuse: Small-scale software components that
implement a single well-defined object or function may be reused.

Benefits of software reuse:

 Accelerated development: Bringing a system to market as early as
possible is often more important than overall development costs. Reusing
software can speed up system production because both development and
validation time may be reduced.
 Effective use of specialists: Instead of doing the same work over and
over again, application specialists can develop reusable software that
encapsulates their knowledge.
 Increased dependability: Reused software, which has been tried and
tested in working systems, should be more dependable than new software.
Its design and implementation faults should have been found and fixed.
 Lower development costs: Development costs are proportional to the
size of the software being developed. Reusing software means that fewer
lines of code have to be written.
 Reduced process risk: The cost of existing software is already known,
whereas the costs of development are always a matter of judgment. This is
an important factor for project management because it reduces the margin
of error in project cost estimation. This is particularly true when relatively
large software components such as subsystems are reused.
 Standards compliance: Some standards, such as user interface

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 standards, can be implemented as a set of reusable components. For
example, if menus in a user interface are implemented using reusable
components, all applications present the same menu formats to users. The
use of standard user interfaces improves dependability because users make
fewer mistakes when presented with a familiar interface.

Problems with software reuse:

 Creating, maintaining, and using a component library: Populating a
reusable component library and ensuring the software developers can use
this library can be expensive. Development processes have to be adapted
to ensure that the library is used.
 Finding, understanding, and adapting reusable
components: Software components have to be discovered in a library,
understood and, sometimes, adapted to work in a new environment.
Engineers must be reasonably confident of finding a component in the
library before they include a component search as part of their normal
development process.
 Increased maintenance costs: If the source code of a reused software
system or component is not available then maintenance costs may be
higher because the reused elements of the system may become
increasingly incompatible with system changes.
 Lack of tool support: Some software tools do not support development
with reuse. It may be difficult or impossible to integrate these tools with a
component library system. The software process assumed by these tools
may not take reuse into account. This is particularly true for tools that
support embedded systems engineering, less so for object-oriented
development tools.
 Not-invented-here syndrome: Some software engineers prefer to rewrite
components because they believe they can improve on them. This is partly
to do with trust and partly to do with the fact that writing original software
is seen as more challenging than reusing other people's software.

Although reuse is often simply thought of as the reuse of system components,

there are many different approaches to reuse that may be used. Reuse is possible
at a range of levels from simple functions to complete application systems. The
reuse landscape covers the range of possible reuse techniques.

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Key factors for reuse planning:
 The development schedule for the software.
 The expected software lifetime.
 The background, skills and experience of the development team.
 The criticality of the software and its non-functional requirements.
 The application domain.
 The execution platform for the software.

Application frameworks
Frameworks are moderately large entities that can be reused. They are
somewhere between system and component reuse.
Frameworks are a sub-system design made up of a collection of abstract and
concrete classes and the interfaces between them.
The sub-system is implemented by adding components to fill in parts of the
design and by instantiating the abstract classes in the framework.
Application frameworks are moderately large entities that can be reused. They
are somewhere between system and component reuse. Frameworks are a sub-
system design made up of a collection of abstract and concrete classes and the
interfaces between them. The sub-system is implemented by adding components
to fill in parts of the design and by instantiating the abstract classes in the
framework.
Web application frameworks (WAF) support the construction of dynamic websites
as a front-end for web applications. WAFs are now available for all of the
commonly used web programming languages e.g. Java, Python, Ruby, etc.
Interaction model is based on the Model-View-Controller composite design
pattern. An MVC framework supports the presentation of data in different ways
and allows interaction with each of these presentations. When the data is
modified through one of the presentations, the system model is changed and the
controllers associated with each view update their presentation.

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WAF features:
 Security: WAFs may include classes to help implement user authentication
(login) and access.
 Dynamic web pages: Classes are provided to help you define web page
templates and to populate these dynamically from the system database.
 Database support: The framework may provide classes that provide an
abstract interface to different databases.
 Session management: Classes to create and manage sessions (a number
of interactions with the system by a user) are usually part of a WAF.
 User interaction: Most web frameworks now provide AJAX support, which
allows more interactive web pages to be created.
Frameworks are generic and are extended to create a more specific application or
sub-system. They provide a skeleton architecture for the system. Extending the
framework involves Adding concrete classes that inherit operations from abstract
classes in the framework; Adding methods that are called in response to events
that are recognized by the framework. Problem with frameworks is their
complexity which means that it takes a long time to use them effectively.

Software product lines

Software product lines or application families are applications with generic
functionality that can be adapted and configured for use in a specific context. A
software product line is a set of applications with a common architecture and
shared components, with each application specialized to reflect different
requirements. Examples: a mobile operating system that works on different
hardware models, a software line for a family of printers with varying features.
Adaptation of a software line may involve:
 Component and system configuration;
 Adding new components to the system;
 Selecting from a library of existing components;
 Modifying components to meet new requirements.
The base application of a software product line includes:
 Core components that provide infrastructure support. These are not
usually modified when developing a new instance of the product line.
 Configurable components that may be modified and configured to
specialize them to a new application. Sometimes, it is possible to
reconfigure these components without changing their code by using a built-
in component configuration language.
 Specialized, domain-specific components some or all of which may be
replaced when a new instance of a product line is created.

Application frameworks vs product lines:

 Application frameworks rely on object-oriented features such as
polymorphism to implement extensions. Product lines need not be object-
oriented (e.g. embedded software for a mobile phone)
 Application frameworks focus on providing technical rather than domain-
specific support. Product lines embed domain and platform information.
 Product lines often control applications for equipment.

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  Software product lines are made up of a family of applications, usually
owned by the same organization.
Product line architectures must be structured in such a way to separate different
sub-systems and to allow them to be modified. The architecture should also
separate entities and their descriptions and the higher levels in the system access
entities through descriptions rather than directly.
Various types of specialization of a software product line may be developed:
 Different versions of the application are developed for different platforms.
 Different versions of the application are created to handle different
operating environments e.g. different types of communication equipment.
 Different versions of the application are created for customers with
different functional requirements.
 Different versions of the application are created to support different
business processes.
Software product lines are designed to be reconfigurable. This configuration may
occur at different stages in the development process:
 Design time configuration: The organization that is developing the
software modifies a common product line core by developing, selecting or
adapting components to create a new system for a customer.
 Deployment time configuration: A generic system is designed for
configuration by a customer or consultants working with the customer.
Knowledge of the customer's specific requirements and the system's
operating environment is embedded in configuration data that are used by
the generic system.

Application system reuse

An application system product is a software system that can be adapted for
different customers without changing the source code of the system. Application
systems have generic features and so can be used/reused in different
environments. Application system products are adapted by using built-in
configuration mechanisms that allow the functionality of the system to be tailored
to specific customer needs.
Benefits of application system reuse:
 As with other types of reuse, more rapid deployment of a reliable system
may be possible.
 It is possible to see what functionality is provided by the applications and so
it is easier to judge whether or not they are likely to be suitable.
 Some development risks are avoided by using existing software. However,
this approach has its own risks, as I discuss below.
 Businesses can focus on their core activity without having to devote a lot of
resources to IT systems development.
 As operating platforms evolve, technology updates may be simplified as
these are the responsibility of the COTS product vendor rather than the
customer.
Problems of application system reuse:
 Requirements usually have to be adapted to reflect the functionality and
mode of operation of the COTS product.
 The COTS product may be based on assumptions that are practically

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 impossible to change.
 Choosing the right COTS system for an enterprise can be a difficult process,
especially as many COTS products are not well documented.
 There may be a lack of local expertise to support systems development.
 The COTS product vendor controls system support and evolution.
Configurable application systems are generic application systems that may
be designed to support a particular business type, business activity or,
sometimes, a complete business enterprise. For example, an application system
may be produced for dentists that handles appointments, dental records, patient
recall, etc. Domain-specific systems, such as systems to support a business
function (e.g. document management) provide functionality that is likely to be
required by a range of potential users.
An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a generic system that
supports common business processes such as ordering and invoicing,
manufacturing, etc. These are very widely used in large companies - they
represent probably the most common form of software reuse. The generic core is
adapted by including modules and by incorporating knowledge of business
processes and rules. A number of modules to support different business functions.
A defined set of business processes, associated with each module, which relate to
activities in that module. A common database that maintains information about
all related business functions. A set of business rules that apply to all data in the
database.

Key elements of ERP system architecture:

 A number of modules to support different business functions.
 A defined set of business processes, associated with each module, which
relate to activities in that module.
 A common database that maintains information about all related business
functions.
 A set of business rules that apply to all data in the database.

An ERP system configuration usually involves:

 Selecting the required functionality from the system.
 Establishing a data model that defines how the organization's data will be
structured in the system database.

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  Defining business rules that apply to that data.
 Defining the expected interactions with external systems.
 Designing the input forms and the output reports generated by the system.
 Designing new business processes that conform to the underlying process
model supported by the system.
 Setting parameters that define how the system is deployed on its
underlying platform.

Integrated application systems

Integrated application systems are applications that include two or more
application system products and/or legacy application systems. You may use this
approach when there is no single application system that meets all of your needs
or when you wish to integrate a new application system with systems that you
already use. To develop integrated application systems, you have to make a
number of design choices:
 Which individual application systems offer the most appropriate
functionality? Typically, there will be several application system products
available, which can be combined in different ways.
 How will data be exchanged? Different products normally use unique data
structures and formats. You have to write adaptors that convert from one
representation to another.
 What features of a product will actually be used? Individual application
systems may include more functionality than you need and functionality
may be duplicated across different products.
Application system integration can be simplified if a service-oriented
approach is used. A service-oriented approach means allowing access to the
application system's functionality through a standard service interface, with a
service for each discrete unit of functionality. Some applications may offer a
service interface but, sometimes, this service interface has to be implemented by
the system integrator. You have to program a wrapper that hides the application
and provides externally visible services.
Application system integration problems:
 Lack of control over functionality and performance: application systems
may be less effective than they appear
 Problems with application system inter-operability: different application
systems may make different assumptions that means integration is difficult
 No control over system evolution: application system vendors not system
users control evolution
 Support from system vendors: application system vendors may not offer
support over the lifetime of the product

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