LECTURE NOTES ON

INTRODUCTION TO SOFTWARE
ENGINEERING
Course Code: CSC-209 UNIT – 2

LECTURE NOTES MODULE 1

CONTENTS
Module 1:
Lecture 1: Introduction to Software Engineering
Lecture 2: Software Development Life Cycle- Classical Waterfall Model

Lecture 3: Iterative Waterfall Model, Prototyping Model, Evolutionary Model

Lecture 4: Spiral Model
Lecture 5: Requirements Analysis and Specification

Lecture 6: Problems without a SRS document, Decision Tree, Decision Table Lecture 7:

Formal System Specification

Lecture 8: Software Design Lecture 9: Software Design Strategies
Lecture 10: Software Analysis & Design Tools
Lecture 11: Structured Design
 INTRODUCTION TO SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
The term software engineering is composed of two words, software and engineering.

Software is more than just a program code. A program is an executable code, which
serves some computational purpose. Software is considered to be a collection of
executable programming code, associated libraries and documentation. Software, when
made for a specific requirement is called software product.

Engineering on the other hand, is all about developing products, using well-defined,
scientific principles and methods. So, we can define software engineering as an
engineering branch associated with the development of software product using well-
defined scientific principles, methods, and procedures. The outcome of software
engineering is an efficient and reliable software product.
IEEE defines software engineering as:
The application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development,
operation and maintenance of software.

We can alternatively view it as a systematic collection of past experiences. The experience

is arranged in the form of methodologies and guidelines. A small program can be written
without using software engineering principles. But if one wants to develop a large software
product, then software engineering principles are absolutely necessary to achieve good
quality software cost-effectively.
Without using software engineering principles it would be difficult to develop large
programs. In industry it is usually needed to develop large programs to accommodate
multiple functions. A problem with developing such large commercial programs is that the
complexity and difficulty levels of the programs increase exponentially with their sizes.
Software engineering helps to reduce this programming complexity. Software engineering
principles use two important techniques to reduce problem complexity: abstraction and
decomposition.
The principle of abstraction implies that a problem can be simplified by omitting irrelevant
details. In other words, the main purpose of abstraction is to consider only those aspects of
the problem that are relevant for a certain purpose and suppress other aspects that are not
relevant for the given purpose. Once the simpler problem is solved, then the omitted details
can be taken into consideration to solve the next lower-level abstraction, and so on.
Abstraction is a powerful way of reducing the complexity of the problem. The other
approach to tackle problem complexity is decomposition. In this technique, a complex
problem is divided into several smaller problems and then the smaller problems are solved
one by one. However, in this technique, any random decomposition of a problem into
smaller parts will not help.
The problem has to be decomposed such that each component of the decomposed problem
can be solved independently and then the solution of the different components can be
combined to get the full solution.
A good decomposition of a problem should minimize interactions among various
components. If the different subcomponents are interrelated, then the different components
cannot be solved separately and the desired reduction in complexity will not be realized.
NEED OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
The need of software engineering arises because of a higher rate of change in user
requirements and the environment on which the software is working.
• Large software - It is easier to build a wall than to a house or building, likewise, as the
size of software becomes large engineering has to step to give it a scientific process.
• Scalability- If the software process were not based on scientific and engineering concepts,
it would be easier to re-create new software than to scale an existing one.
• Cost- As hardware industry has shown its skills and huge manufacturing has lowered
down the price of computer and electronic hardware. However, the cost of software
remains high if the proper process is not adapted.
• Dynamic Nature- The always-growing and adapting nature of software hugely depends
upon the environment in which the user works. If the nature of software is always
changing, new enhancements need to be done in the existing one. This is where software
engineering plays a good role.
• Quality Management- Better process of software development provides better and quality
software products.
CHARACTERESTICS OF GOOD SOFTWARE
A software product can be judged by what it offers and how well it can be used. This software must satisfy
on the following grounds:

•Operational
•Transitional
Maintenance Well-engineered and crafted software is expected to have the following characteristics:

Operational
This tells us how well the software works in operations. It can be measured on:

• Budget
• Usability
• Efficiency
• Correctness
• Functionality
• Dependability
• Security
• Safety
Transitional
This aspect is important when the software is moved from one platform to another:

• Portability
• Interoperability
• Reusability
• Adaptability

Maintenance
This aspect briefs about how well a software has the capabilities to maintain itself in the ever- changing
environment:

• Modularity
• Maintainability
• Flexibility
• Scalability
In short, Software engineering is a branch of computer science, which uses well-defined engineering
concepts required to produce efficient, durable, scalable, in-budget and on-time software products
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE
LIFE CYCLE MODEL
A software life cycle model (also called process model) is a descriptive and diagrammatic
representation of the software life cycle.
A life cycle model represents all the activities required to make a software product transit
through its life cycle phases.
It also captures the order in which these activities are to be undertaken.
In other words, a life cycle model maps the different activities performed on a software
product from its inception to retirement.
Different life cycle models may map the basic development activities to phases in different
ways. Thus, no matter which life cycle model is followed, the basic activities are included
in all life cycle models though the activities may be carried out in different orders in
different life cycle models. During any life cycle phase, more than one activity may also
be carried out.
THE NEED FOR A SOFTWARE LIFE CYCLE MODEL
The development team must identify a suitable life cycle model for the particular project and then adhere
to it.
Without using a particular life cycle model the development of a software product would not be in a
systematic and disciplined manner.
When a software product is being developed by a team there must be a clear understanding among team
members about when and what to do. Otherwise, it would lead to chaos and project failure.
This problem can be illustrated by using an example. Suppose a software development problem is divided
into several parts and the parts are assigned to the team members. From then on, suppose the team
members are allowed the freedom to develop the parts assigned to them in whatever way they like. It is
possible that one member might start writing the code for his part, another might decide to prepare the test
documents first, and some other engineer might begin with the design phase of the parts assigned to him.
This would be one of the perfect recipes for project failure. A software life cycle model defines entry and
exit criteria for every phase. A phase can start only if its phase-entry criteria have been satisfied. So without
a software life cycle model the entry and exit criteria for a phase cannot be recognized. Without software
life cycle models it becomes difficult for software project managers to monitor the progress of the project.
Different software life cycle models
Many life cycle models have been proposed so far. Each of them has some advantages as
well as some disadvantages. A few important and commonly used life cycle models are as
follows:

▪ Classical Waterfall Model

▪ Iterative Waterfall Model

▪ Prototyping Model

▪ Evolutionary Model

▪ Spiral Model
CLASSICAL WATERFALL MODEL

▪ The classical waterfall model is intuitively the most obvious way to develop software.
▪ Though the classical waterfall model is elegant and intuitively obvious, it is not a
practical model in the sense that it cannot be used in actual software development
projects.
▪ Thus, this model can be considered to be a theoretical way of developing software.
However, all other life cycle models are essentially derived from the classical
waterfall model. So, in order to be able to appreciate other life cycle models it is
necessary to learn the classical waterfall model.
▪ The classical waterfall model divides the life cycle into the following phases as
shown in fig.1:
Fig1: Classical Waterfall Model
Feasibility study - The main aim of the feasibility study is to determine whether it would be
financially and technically feasible to develop the product.
▪ At first, project managers or team leaders try to have a rough understanding of what is
required to be done by visiting the client side. They study different input data to the system
and output data to be produced by the system. They study what kind of processing is needed
to be done on these data and they look at the various constraints on the behavior of the
system.

▪ After they have an overall understanding of the problem they investigate the different
solutions that are possible. Then they examine each of the solutions in terms of what kind of
resources required, what would be the cost of development and what would be the
development time for each solution.

▪ Based on this analysis they pick the best solution and determine whether the solution is feasible
financially and technically. They check whether the customer budget would meet the cost of the
product and whether they have sufficient technical expertise in the area of development.
Requirements analysis and specification: - The requirements analysis and specification phase
aims to understand the exact requirements of the customer and to document them properly. This
phase consists of two distinct activities, namely
• Requirements gathering and analysis
• Requirements specification

The goal of the requirements-gathering activity is to collect all relevant information from the
customer regarding the product to be developed. This is done to clearly understand the
customer requirements so that incompleteness and inconsistencies are removed.

The requirements analysis activity begins by collecting all relevant data regarding the product
to be developed from the users of the product and from the customer through interviews and
discussions. For example, to perform the requirements analysis of a business accounting
software required by an organization, the analyst might interview all the accountants of the
organization to ascertain their requirements.
The data collected from such a group of users usually contain several contradictions and
ambiguities, since each user typically has only a partial and incomplete view of the system.
Therefore it is necessary to identify all ambiguities and contradictions in the requirements
and resolve them through further discussions with the customer. After all ambiguities,
inconsistencies, and incompleteness have been resolved and all the requirements properly
understood, the requirements specification activity can start.

During this activity, the user requirements are systematically organized into a Software
Requirements Specification (SRS) document. The customer requirements identified during
the requirements gathering and analysis activity are organized into a SRS document. The
important components of this document are functional requirements, nonfunctional
requirements, and the goals of implementation.
Design: - The goal of the design phase is to transform the requirements specified in the
SRS document into a structure that is suitable for implementation in some programming
language. In technical terms, during the design phase, the software architecture is derived
from the SRS document. Two distinctly different approaches are available: the traditional
design approach and the object-oriented design approach.

• Traditional design approach -Traditional design consists of two different activities;

first a structured analysis of the requirements specification is carried out where the
detailed structure of the problem is examined. This is followed by a structured design
activity. During structured design, the results of structured analysis are transformed
into the software design.

• Object-oriented design approach -In this technique, various objects that occur in the
problem domain and the solution domain are first identified, and the different
relationships that exist among these objects are identified. The object structure is
further refined to obtain the detailed design.
Coding and unit testing:-The purpose of the coding phase (sometimes called the
implementation phase) of software development is to translate the software design into
source code. Each component of the design is implemented as a program module. The end
product of this phase is a set of program modules that have been individually tested.
During this phase, each module is unit tested to determine the correct working of all the
individual modules. It involves testing each module in isolation as this is the most efficient
way to debug the errors identified at this stage.

Integration and system testing: -Integration of different modules is undertaken once they
have been coded and unit tested. During the integration and system testing phase, the
modules are integrated in a planned manner. The different modules making up a software
product are rarely integrated in one shot. Integration is normally carried out incrementally
over a number of steps. During each integration step, the partially integrated system is
tested and a set of previously planned modules are added to it. Finally, when all the
modules have been successfully integrated and tested, system testing is carried out.
The goal of system testing is to ensure that the developed system conforms to its
requirements laid out in the SRS document. System testing usually consists of three
different kinds of testing activities:

• α – testing: It is the system testing performed by the development team.

• β –testing: It is the system testing performed by a friendly set of customers.
• Acceptance testing: It is the system testing performed by the customer himself after the
product delivery to determine whether to accept or reject the delivered product.

System testing is normally carried out in a planned manner according to the system test
plan document. The system test plan identifies all testing-related activities that must be
performed, specifies the schedule of testing, and allocates resources. It also lists all the test
cases and the expected outputs for each test case.
Maintenance: -Maintenance of a typical software product requires much more than the
effort necessary to develop the product itself. Many studies carried out in the past confirm
this and indicate that the relative effort of development of a typical software product to its
maintenance effort is roughly in the 40:60 ratio. Maintenance involves performing any one
or more of the following three kinds of activities:

• Correcting errors that were not discovered during the product development phase. This
is called corrective maintenance.

• Improving the implementation of the system, and enhancing the functionalities of the
system according to the customer’s requirements. This is called perfective
maintenance.

• Porting the software to work in a new environment. For example, porting may be
required to get the software to work on a new computer platform or with a new
operating system. This is called adaptive maintenance.
Shortcomings of the classical Waterfall Model

The classical waterfall model is an idealistic one since it assumes that no development error is ever
committed by the engineers during any of the life cycle phases. However, in practical development
environments, the engineers do commit a large number of errors in almost every phase of the life
cycle.
The source of the defects can be many: oversight, wrong assumptions, use of inappropriate
technology, communication gap among the project engineers, etc.
These defects usually get detected much later in the life cycle. For example, a design defect might
go unnoticed till we reach the coding or testing phase.
Once a defect is detected, the engineers need to go back to the phase where the defect had occurred
and redo some of the work done during that phase and the subsequent phases to correct the defect
and its effect on the later phases.
Therefore, in any practical software development work, it is not possible to strictly follow the
classical waterfall model.
2. ITERATIVE WATERFALL MODEL
To overcome the major shortcomings of the classical waterfall model, we come up with the iterative
waterfall model.

Fig 2: Iterative Waterfall Model

Here, we provide feedback paths for error correction as & when detected later in a phase.
Though errors are inevitable, but it is desirable to detect them in the same phase in which
they occur. If so, this can reduce the effort to correct the bug.

The advantage of this model is that there is a working model of the system at a very early
stage of development which makes it easier to find functional or design flaws. Finding
issues at an early stage of development enables to take corrective measures in a limited
budget.

The disadvantage of this SDLC model is that it is applicable only to large and bulky
software development projects. This is because it is hard to break a small software system
into further small serviceable increments/modules.
3.PRTOTYPING MODEL
Prototype
A prototype is a toy implementation of the system. A prototype usually exhibits limited functional
capabilities, low reliability, and inefficient performance compared to the actual software. A prototype is
usually built using several shortcuts. The shortcuts might involve using inefficient, inaccurate, or
dummy functions. The shortcut implementation of a function, for example, may produce the desired
results by using a table look-up instead of performing the actual computations. A prototype usually turns
out to be a very crude version of the actual system.

Need for a prototype in software development

There are several uses of a prototype. An important purpose is to illustrate the input data formats,
messages, reports, and interactive dialogues to the customer. This is a valuable mechanism for gaining a
better understanding of the customer’s needs:
• how the screens might look like
• how the user interface would behave
• how the system would produce outputs
Another reason for developing a prototype is that it is impossible to get the perfect product in
the first attempt. Many researchers and engineers advocate that if you want to develop a good
product you must plan to throw away the first version. The experience gained in developing
the prototype can be used to develop the final product.

A prototyping model can be used when technical solutions are unclear to the development
team. A developed prototype can help engineers to critically examine the technical issues
associated with product development. Often, major design decisions depend on issues like the
response time of a hardware controller, or the efficiency of a sorting algorithm, etc. In such
circumstances, a prototype may be the best or the only way to resolve the technical issues.

A prototype of the actual product is preferred in situations such as:

•User requirements are not complete
•Technical issues are not clear
Fig 3: Prototype Model
4.EVOLUTIONARY MODEL
It is also called the successive versions model or incremental model. At first, a simple working
model is built. Subsequently, it undergoes functional improvements & we keep on adding new
functions till the desired system is built.
Applications:
• Large projects where you can easily find modules for incremental implementation. Often
used when the customer wants to start using the core features rather than waiting for the
full software.
• Also used in object-oriented software development because the system can be easily
portioned into units in terms of objects.
Advantages:
• User gets a chance to experiment partially developed system
• Reduce the error because the core modules get tested thoroughly.
Disadvantages:
• It is difficult to divide the problem into several versions that would be acceptable to the
customer which can be incrementally implemented & delivered.
Fig 3.3: Evolutionary Model
5. SPIRAL MODEL

The Spiral model of software development is shown in fig. 5. The diagrammatic

representation of this model appears like a spiral with many loops. The exact number of
loops in the spiral is not fixed. Each loop of the spiral represents a phase of the software
process. For example, the innermost loop might be concerned with a feasibility study, the
next loop with requirements specification, the next one with design, and so on. Each phase
in this model is split into four sectors (or quadrants) as shown in fig. 5. The following
activities are carried out during each phase of a spiral model.
Fig 5: Spiral Model
Second Quadrant (Risk Assessment and Reduction)
•A detailed analysis is carried out for each identified project risk.
• Steps are taken to reduce the risks. For example, if there is a risk that the
requirements are inappropriate, a prototype system may be developed.

Third Quadrant (Development and Validation)

• Develop and validate the next level of the product after resolving the identified
risks.

Fourth Quadrant (Review and Planning)

•Review the results achieved so far with the customer and plan the next iteration
around the spiral.
•Progressively more complete version of the software gets built with each iteration
around the spiral.
Circumstances to use spiral model

The spiral model is called a meta model since it encompasses all other life cycle models.
Risk handling is inherently built into this model. The spiral model is suitable for
development of technically challenging software products that are prone to several kinds of
risks. However, this model is much more complex than the other models – this is probably a
factor deterring its use in ordinary projects.

Comparison of different life-cycle models

The classical waterfall model can be considered as the basic model and all other life cycle
models as embellishments of this model. However, the classical waterfall model cannot be
used in practical development projects, since this model supports no mechanism to handle
the errors committed during any of the phases.
This problem is overcome in the iterative waterfall model. The iterative waterfall model is
probably the most widely used software development model evolved so far. This model is
simple to understand and use. However, this model is suitable only for well-understood
problems; it is not suitable for very large projects and for projects that are subject to many
risks.

The prototyping model is suitable for projects for which either the user requirements or the
underlying technical aspects are not well understood. This model is especially popular for
the development of the user interface part of the projects.

The evolutionary approach is suitable for large problems which can be decomposed into a
set of modules for incremental development and delivery. This model is also widely used
for object-oriented development projects. Of course, this model can only be used if the
incremental delivery of the system is acceptable to the customer.
The spiral model is called a meta-model since it encompasses all other life cycle models. Risk
handling is inherently built into this model. The spiral model is suitable for the development
of technically challenging software products that are prone to several kinds of risks.
However, this model is much more complex than the other models – this is probably a factor
deterring its use in ordinary projects.
The different software life cycle models can be compared from the viewpoint of the customer.
Initially, customer confidence in the development team is usually high irrespective of the
development model followed.
During the lengthy development process, customer confidence normally drops off, as no
working product is immediately visible.
Developers answer customer queries using technical slang, and delays are announced. This
gives rise to customer resentment.
On the other hand, an evolutionary approach lets the customer experiment with a working
product much earlier than the monolithic approach.
Another important advantage of the incremental model is that it reduces the customer’s
trauma of getting used to an entirely new system. The gradual introduction of the product
via incremental phases provides time for the customer to adjust to the new product.
Also, from the customer’s financial viewpoint, incremental development does not require a
large upfront capital outlay. The customer can order the incremental versions as and when
he can afford them.