CS3043 Assignment 1

Sample Answers
1.     What are the most important differences between generic software
product development and custom software development? What might
this mean in practice for users of generic software products?

The essential difference is that in generic software product

development, the specification is owned by the product developer.
For custom product development, the specification is owned and
controlled by the customer. The implications of this are significant
– the developer can quickly decide to change the specification in
response to some external change (e.g. a competing product) but,
when the customer owns the specification, changes have to be
negotiated between the customer and the developer and may have
contractual implications.

For users of generic products, this means they have no control

over the software specification so cannot control the evolution of
the product. The developer may decide to include/exclude
features and change the user interface. This could have
implications for the user’s business processes and add extra
training costs when new versions of the system are installed. It
also may limit the customer’s flexibility to change their own
business processes.

2.     Based on your own knowledge of some of the application types

discussed in the textbook (chapter 1, section 1.1.2), explain, with
examples, why different application types require specialized software
engineering techniques to support their design and development.

Different application types require the use of different

development techniques for a number of reasons:
a)     Costs and frequency of change. Some systems (such as
embedded systems in consumer devices) are extremely
expensive to change; others, must change frequently in
response to changing requirements (e.g. business
systems). Systems which are very expensive to change
need extensive upfront analysis to ensure that the
requirements are consistent and extensive validation to
ensure that the system meets its specification. This is
not cost effective for systems that change very rapidly.

b)     The most important ‘non-functional’ requirements.

Different systems have different priorities for
non-functional requirements. For example, a real-time
 control system in an aircraft has safety as its principal
priority; an interactive game has responsiveness and
usability as its priority. The techniques used to achieve
safety are not required for interactive gaming; the
extensive UI design required for games is not needed in
safety-critical control systems.

c) The software lifetime and delivery schedule. Some

software systems have a relatively short lifetime (many
web-based systems), others have a lifetime of tens of
years (large command and control systems). Some
systems have to be delivered quickly if they are to be
useful. The techniques used to develop short-lifetime,
rapid delivery systems (e.g. use of scripting languages,
prototyping, etc.) are inappropriate for long-lifetime
systems which require techniques that allow for
long-term support such as design modelling.

3.     Explain why there are fundamental ideas of software engineering that
apply to all types of software systems.

Because of all software systems have common quality attributes,

including availability, modifiability, performance, security and
safety, testability and usability, the fundamental software ideas
provides common solutions or tactics to support those qualities.

4.     Giving reasons for your answer based on the type of system being
developed, suggest the most appropriate generic software process
model that might be used as a basis for managing the development of
the following systems:
a)     A system to control anti-lock braking in a car
b)     A virtual reality system to support software maintenance
c)     A university accounting system that replaces an existing
system
d) An interactive travel planning system that helps users plan
journey with the lowest environment impact

a)     Anti-lock braking system This is a safety-critical system so

requires a lot of up-front analysis before implementation. It
certainly needs a plan-driven approach to development with
the requirements carefully analysed. A waterfall model is
therefore the most appropriate approach to use, perhaps with
formal transformations between the different development
stages.

b)     Virtual reality system This is a system where the requirements

will change and there will be an extensive user interface
components. Incremental development with, perhaps, some UI
 prototyping is the most appropriate model. An agile process
may be used.

c) University accounting system This is a system whose

requirements are fairly well-known and which will be used in an
environment in conjunction with lots of other systems such as
a research grant management system. Therefore, a
reuse-based approach is likely to be appropriate for this.

d) Interactive travel planning system System with a complex user

interface but which must be stable and reliable. An incremental
development approach is the most appropriate as the system
requirements will change as real user experience with the
system is gained.

5.     Explain why incremental development is the most effective approach

for developing business software systems. Why is this model less
appropriate for real-time systems engineering?

Business software systems usually complex, software intensive,

and frequently being changes when business goals or processes
are changed. So incremental development is better.
Real-time systems usually involve many hardware components
which are not easy to change and cannot be incremental. Also
real-time systems usually safety critical which needed be built
based on well planned process.

6.     Suggest why it is important to make a distinction between developing

the user requirements and developing system requirements in the
requirements engineering process.

There is a fundamental difference between the user and the

system requirements that mean they should be considered
separately.
a) The user requirements are intended to describe the system’s
functions and features from a user perspective and it is
essential that users understand these requirements. They
should be expressed in natural language and may not be
expressed in great detail, to allow some implementation
flexibility. The people involved in the process must be able to
understand the user’s environment and application domain.

b) The system requirements are much more detailed than the

user requirements and are intended to be a precise
specification of the system that may be part of a system
contract. They may also be used in situations where
development is outsourced and the development team need a
complete specification of what should be developed. The
 system requirements are developed after user requirements
have been established.

7.     Explain how the principles underlying agile methods lead to the
accelerated development and development of software.

The principles underlying agile development are:

a)     Individual and interactions over processes and tools. By
taking advantages of individual skills and ability and by
ensuring that the development team knows what each other
are doing, the overheads of formal communication and
process assurance are avoided. This means that the team
can focus on the development of working software.

b)     Working software over comprehensive documentation. This

contributes to accelerated development because time is not
spent developing, checking and managing documentation.
Rather, the programmer’s time is focused on the
development and testing of code.

c)     Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Rather

than spending time developing, analyzing and negotiating
requirements to be included in a system contract, agile
developers argue that it is more effective to get feedback
from customer’s directly during the development about
what is required. This allows useful functionality to be
developed and delivered earlier than would be possible if
contracts were required.

d)     Responding to change over following a plan. Agile

developers argue (rightly) that being responsive to change
is more effective than following a plan-based process
because change is inevitable whatever process is used.
There is significant overhead in changing plans to
accommodate change and the inflexibility of a plan means
that work may be done that is later discarded.

8.     When would you recommend against the use of an agile method for
developing a software system? Explain your answer.

Agile methods should probably not be used when the software is

being developed by teams who are not co-located. If any of the
individual teams use agile methods, it is very difficult to coordinate
their work with other teams. Furthermore, the informal
communication which is an essential part of agile methods is
practically impossible to maintain.
 Agile methods should probably also be avoided for critical systems
where the consequences of a specification error are serious. In
those circumstances, a system specification that is available
before development starts makes a detailed specification analysis
possible.

However, some ideas from agile approaches such as test first

development are certainly applicable to critical systems.

9.     Discover ambiguities or omissions in the following statement of

requirements for part of a ticket-issuing systems:

An automated ticket-issuing system sells rail tickets. Users select

their destination and input a credit card and a personal
identification number. The rail ticket is issued and their credit card
account charged. When the user presses the start button, a menu
display of potential destinations is activated, along with a message
to the user to select a destination. Once a destination has been
selected, users are requested to input their credit card. Its validity
is checked and the user is then requested to input a personal
identifier. When the credit transaction has been validated, the
ticket is issued.

Ambiguities and omissions include:

a)     Can a customer buy several tickets for the same destination
together or must they be bought one at a time?
b)     Can customers cancel a request if a mistake has been made?
c)     How should the system respond if an invalid card is input?
d)     What happens if customers try to put their card in before
selecting a destination (as they would in ATM machines)?
e)     Must the user press the start button again if they wish to buy
another ticket to a different destination?
f)      Should the system only sell tickets between the station where
the machine is situated and direct connections or should it
include all possible destinations?

10. Rewrite the above description using the structured approach

described in chapter 4 of the textbook. Resolve the identified
ambiguities in an appropriate way.

11.  Write a set of non-functional requirements for the ticket-issuing

system, setting out its expected reliability and response time.

Possible non-functional requirements for the ticket issuing system

include:
a)     Between 0600 and 2300 in any one day, the total system
down time should not exceed 5 minutes.
b)     Between 0600 and 2300 in any one day, the recovery time
after a system failure should not exceed 2 minutes.
 c) Between 2300 and 0600 in any one day, the total system
down time should not exceed 20 minutes.

All these are availability requirements – note that these vary

according to the time of day. Failures when most people are
traveling are less acceptable than failures when there are few
customers.
d) After the customer presses a button on the machine, the
display should be updated within 0.5 seconds.
e) The ticket issuing time after credit card validation has been
received should not exceed 10 seconds.
f) When validating credit cards, the display should provide a
status message for customers indicating that activity is
taking place. This tells the customer that the potentially
time consuming activity of validation is still in progress and
that the system has not simply failed.
g) The maximum acceptable failure rate for ticket issue
requests is 1: 10000.

12.  You have been asked to develop a system that will help with planning
large-scale events and parties such us weddings, graduation
celebrations, birthday parties, etc.
(a)   Modeling entities and their relationships which are involved in
planning events and parties using a UML class diagram.
(b)  Modeling the process context for such a system that shows the
activities involved in planning a party (booking a venue,
organizing invitations, etc.), using a UML activity diagram.

13.  Develop a sequence diagram showing the interactions involved when

a student registers a course in a university. Courses may have limited
enrolment, so the registration process must include checks that
places are available. Assume that the student accesses an electronic
course catalog to find out about available courses.
1.     Draw a UML state diagram of the control software for ONE of the
follows:
·       An automatic washing machine that has different programs for
different types of clothes.
·       The software for a DVD player.
·       A telephone answering system that records incoming messages
and displays the number of accepted messages on an LED. The
system should allow the telephone customer to dial in from any
location, type a sequence of numbers (identified as tones), and
play any recorded messages.

2.     Explain why design conflicts might arise when designing an

architecture for which both availability and security requirements are
the most important non-functional requirements.

3.     Draw a UML class diagram showing a conceptual view and draw a
UML sequence diagram showing a process view of the architecture of
ONE of the following systems:
·       An automated ticket-issuing system used by passengers at a
railway station
·       A computer-controlled video conferencing system that allows
video, audio and computer data to be visible to several
participants at the same time.
·       A robot floor cleaner that is intended to clean relatively clear
spaces such as corridors. The cleaner must be able to sense
walls and other obstructions.

4.     For each of the following architectural patterns described in the

textbook, describe a real-world or example application system which
should be designed using the pattern.
·       MVC
·       Layered
·       Repository
·       Client-server
·       Pipe and filter
5.     Suggest an architecture for a system (such as iTune) that is used to
sell and distribute music on the internet. What architectural patterns
are the basis for this architecture? Explain your answer.

6. Using the basic model of an information system, as presented in

Figure 6.16 of the textbook, suggest the components that might be
part of an information system that allows users to view information
about flights arriving and departing from a particular airport.

7.     Using the UML graphical notation for object classes, design the
following object classes, identifying attributes and operations. Use
your own experience to decide on the attributes and operations that
should be associated with these objects:
·       A telephone
·       A printer for personal computer
·       A personal stereo system
·       A bank account
· A library catalog

8.     Identify possible objects in ONE of the following systems and develop
an object-oriented design for them. Using a UML class diagram and
associated explanation to show your design. You may make many
reasonable assumptions about the system when deriving the design.
· A group diary and time management system is intended to
support the timetabling of meetings and appointments across
a group of co-workers. When an appointment is to be made
that involves a number of people, the system finds a common
slot in each of their diaries and arranges the appointment for
that time. If no common slots are available, it interacts with the
user to rearrange his or her personal diary to make room for
the appointment.

·       A filling station (gas station) is to be set up for fully automated

operation. Drivers swipe their credit card through a reader
connected to the pump; the card is verified by communication
with a credit company computer, and fuel limit is established.
The driver may then take the fuel required. When fuel delivery
is complete and the pump host is returned to its holster, the
driver’s credit card account is debited with the cost of the fuel
taken. The credit card is returned after debiting. If the card is
invalid, the pump returns it before fuel is dispensed.

9.     For the Observer design pattern described in the textbook, describe a
real-world or example application which should be design using the
pattern.

10.  A small company has developed a specialized product that it

configures specially for each customer. New customers usually have
specific requirements to be incorporated into their system, and they
pay for these to be developed. The company has an opportunity to
bid for a new contract, which would more than double its customer
 base. The new customer also wishes to have some involvement in the
configuration of the system. Explain why, in these circumstances, it
might be a good idea for the company owning the software to make it
open source.

The key benefits of open source are is that it opens up

development to a wide range of developers and so accelerates the
development and debugging of the product. Doubling the
customer base places immense strains on a small company of they
have to take on a lot of new staff and so going open source means
that the costs of expansion are reduced.

In this case, because the product is specialized to the needs of

different users, the company that own the software can still charge
these users to make the changes to the system. Hence the loss in
revenue from selling the software is compensated by the
additional effort available to service more customers.

Furthermore, large companies are often reluctant to buy from

small companies who may go out of business, To some extent,
open source provides reassurance to customers that, even of the
original owners of the software are unavailable, they can get
access to the source code and hence continue to maintain their
system.

Finally, open source may increase knowledge of the company’s

product and so attract more customers.

11.  It states that “testing can only detect the presence of error, not their
absence”. Do you agree with this statement? If yes, explain why. If
not, use an example to show how?

Assume that exhaustive testing of a program, where every

possible valid input is checked, is impossible (true for all but trivial
programs). Test cases either do not reveal a fault in the program
or reveal a program fault. If they reveal a program fault then they
demonstrate the presence of an error. If they do not reveal a fault,
however, this simply means that they have executed a code
sequence that – for the inputs chosen – is not faulty. The next test
of the same code sequence – with different inputs – could reveal a
fault.

12.  You have been asked to test a method called “catWhiteSpace” in a

“Paragraph” object that, within the paragraph, replaces sequences if
blank characters with a single blank charater. Identify testing
partitions for this example and derive a set of tests for the
“catWhiteSpace” method.
 Testing partitions are:
Strings with only single blank characters
Strings with sequences of blank characters in the middle of the
string
Strings with sequences of blank characters at the beginning/end
of string
Examples of tests:
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (only single blanks)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (different numbers
of blanks in the sequence)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (1st blank is a
sequence)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (Last blank is a
sequence)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (2 blanks at
beginning)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (several blanks at
beginning)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (2 blanks at end)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (several blanks at
end)
Etc.

13.  What is regression testing? Explain how the use of automated tests
and a testing framework such as JUnit simplifies regression testing.

Regression testing is the process of running tests for functionality

that has already been implemented when new functionality is
developed or the system is changed. Regression tests check that
the system changes have not introduced problems into the
previously implemented code.

Automated tests and a testing framework, such as JUnit, radically

simplify regression testing as the entire test set can be run
automatically each time a change is made. The automated tests
include their own checks that the test has been successful or
otherwise so the costs of checking the success or otherwise of
regression tests is low.

14.  As a software project manager in a company that specializes in the

development of software for offshore oil industry, you have been given
the task of discovering the factors that affect the maintainability of
the systems developed by your company. Suggest how you might set
up a program to analyze the maintenance process and discover
appropriate maintainability metrics for your company.
 This is a very open question, where there are many possible
answers. Basically, the students should identify factors which
affect maintainability such as (program and data complexity, use
of meaningful identifiers, programming language, program
documentation etc.). They should then suggest how these can be
evaluated in existing systems whose maintenance cost is known
and discuss problems of interaction. The approach should be to
discover those program units which have particularly high
maintenance costs and to evaluate the cost factors for these
components and for other components. Then check for
correlations.

15.  Briefly describe the three main types of software maintenance. Use
examples to explain why it sometimes difficult to distinguish between
them?

The three main types of software maintenance are:

a)     Corrective maintenance or fault repair. The changes made
to the system are to repair reported faults which may be
program bugs or specification errors or omissions.
b)     Adaptive maintenance or environmental adaptation.
Changing the software to adapt it to changes in its
environment e.g. changes to other software systems.
c)     Perfective maintenance or functionality addition. This
involves adding new functionality or features to the system.

They are sometimes difficult to distinguish because the same set

of changes may cover all three types of maintenance. For example,
a reported fault in the system may be repaired by upgrading some
other software and then adapting the system to use this new
version (corrective + adaptive). The new software may have
additional functionality and as part of the adaptive maintenance,
new features may be added to take advantage of this.

16.  Under what circumstances might an organization decide to scrap a

system when the system assessment suggests that it is of high quality
and of high business value?

Examples of where software might be scrapped and rewritten are:

a) When the cost of maintenance is high and the organisation
has decided to invest in new hardware. This will involve
significant conversion costs anyway so the opportunity
might be taken to rewrite the software.
b) When a business process is changed and new software is
required to support the process.
 c) When support for the tools and language used to develop
the software is unavailable. This is a particular problem with
early 4GLs where, in many cases, the vendors are no longer
in business.

17.  Do software engineers have a professional responsibility to produce

code that can be maintained and changed even if this is not explicitly
requested by their employer?

Yes, this is general software quality requirements which all

software engineers should follow, unless it is specifically
un-requested by the employer with good reason such as rapid
development or prototyping.

Write your answers in a MS Word file with name “cs3043a1.doc” or a PDF

file with name “cs1043a1.pdf”. Submit the file through the course
website.