Supplementary Slides for

Software Engineering:
A Practitioner's Approach, 6/e
Part 2
copyright © 1996, 2001, 2005
R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc.

For University Use Only

May be reproduced ONLY for student use at the university level
when used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach.
Any other reproduction or use is expressly prohibited.

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 Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach,
6/e

Chapter 5
Practice: A Generic View
copyright © 1996, 2001, 2005
R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc.

For University Use Only

May be reproduced ONLY for student use at the university level
when used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach.
Any other reproduction or use is expressly prohibited.

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 6/e and are provided with
permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001, 2005 2
 What is “Practice”?
 Practice is a broad array of concepts, principles,
methods, and tools that you must consider as software is
planned and developed.
 It represents the details—the technical considerations
and how to’s—that are below the surface of the software
process—the things that you’ll need to actually build
high-quality computer software.

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 The Essence of Practice
 George Polya, in a book written in 1945 (!), describes the
essence of software engineering practice …
 Understand the problem (communication and analysis).
 Plan a solution (modeling and software design).
 Carry out the plan (code generation).
 Examine the result for accuracy (testing and quality assurance).
 At its core, good practice is common-sense problem
solving

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 Core Software Engineering Principles
 Provide value to the customer and the user
 KIS—keep it simple!
 Maintain the product and project “vision”
 What you produce, others will consume
 Be open to the future
 Plan ahead for reuse
 Think!

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 Software Engineering Practices
 Consider the generic process framework
 Communication
 Planning
 Modeling
 Construction
 Deployment
 Here, we’ll identify
 Underlying principles
 How to initiate the practice
 An abbreviated task set

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 Communication Practices
 Principles
 Listen
 Prepare before you communicate
 Facilitate the communication
 Face-to-face is best
 Take notes and document decisions
 Collaborate with the customer
 Stay focused
 Draw pictures when things are unclear
 Move on …
 Negotiation works best when both parties win.

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 Communication Practices
 Initiation
 The parties should be physically close to one another
 Make sure communication is interactive
 Create solid team “ecosystems”
 Use the right team structure
 An abbreviated task set
 Identify who it is you need to speak with
 Define the best mechanism for communication
 Establish overall goals and objectives and define the scope
 Get more detailed
 Have stakeholders define scenarios for usage
 Extract major functions/features
 Review the results with all stakeholders

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 Planning Practices
 Principles
 Understand the project scope
 Involve the customer (and other stakeholders)
 Recognize that planning is iterative
 Estimate based on what you know
 Consider risk
 Be realistic
 Adjust granularity as you plan
 Define how quality will be achieved
 Define how you’ll accommodate changes
 Track what you’ve planned

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 Planning Practices
 Initiation
 Ask Boehm’s questions
 Why is the system being developed?
 What will be done?
 When will it be accomplished?
 Who is responsible?
 Where are they located (organizationally)?
 How will the job be done technically and managerially?
 How much of each resource is needed?

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 Planning Practices
 An abbreviated task set
 Re-assess project scope
 Assess risks
 Evaluate functions/features
 Consider infrastructure functions/features
 Create a coarse granularity plan
 Number of software increments
 Overall schedule
 Delivery dates for increments
 Create fine granularity plan for first increment
 Track progress

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 Modeling Practices
 We create models to gain a better understanding of the
actual entity to be built
 Analysis models represent the customer requirements by
depicting the software in three different domains: the
information domain, the functional domain, and the
behavioral domain.
 Design models represent characteristics of the software
that help practitioners to construct it effectively: the
architecture, the user interface, and component-level
detail.
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 Analysis Modeling Practices
 Analysis modeling principles
 Represent the information domain
 Represent software functions
 Represent software behavior
 Partition these representations
 Move from essence toward implementation
 Elements of the analysis model (Chapter 8)
 Data model
 Flow model
 Class model
 Behavior model

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 Design Modeling Practices
 Principles
 Design must be traceable to the analysis model
 Always consider architecture
 Focus on the design of data
 Interfaces (both user and internal) must be designed
 Components should exhibit functional independence
 Components should be loosely coupled
 Design representation should be easily understood
 The design model should be developed iteratively
 Elements of the design model
 Data design
 Architectural design
 Component design
 Interface design

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 Construction Practices
 Preparation principles: Before you write one line of code, be
sure you:
 Understand of the problem you’re trying to solve (see
communication and modeling)
 Understand basic design principles and concepts.
 Pick a programming language that meets the needs of the software
to be built and the environment in which it will operate.
 Select a programming environment that provides tools that will
make your work easier.
 Create a set of unit tests that will be applied once the component
you code is completed.
completed

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 Construction Practices
 Coding principles: As you begin writing code, be sure you:
 Constrain your algorithms by following structured programming [BOH00] practice.
 Select data structures that will meet the needs of the design.
 Understand the software architecture and create interfaces that are consistent with it.
 Keep conditional logic as simple as possible.
 Create nested loops in a way that makes them easily testable.
 Select meaningful variable names and follow other local coding standards.
 Write code that is self-documenting.
 Create a visual layout (e.g., indentation and blank lines) that aids understanding.

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 Construction Practices
 Validation Principles: After you’ve completed your first
coding pass, be sure you:
 Conduct a code walkthrough when appropriate.
 Perform unit tests and correct errors you’ve uncovered.
 Refactor the code.

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 Construction Practices
 Testing Principles
 All tests should be traceable to requirements
 Tests should be planned
 The Pareto Principle applies to testing
 Testing begins “in the small” and moves toward “in the large”
 Exhaustive testing is not possible

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 Deployment Practices
 Principles
 Manage customer expectations for each increment
 A complete delivery package should be assembled and tested
 A support regime should be established
 Instructional materials must be provided to end-users
 Buggy software should be fixed first, delivered later

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