Chapter 7 – Design and Implementation

Lecture 1

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

Topics covered

 Object-oriented design using the UML

 Design patterns
 Implementation issues
 Open source development

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

Design and implementation

 Software design and implementation is the stage in the

software engineering process at which an executable
software system is developed.²
 Software design and implementation activities are
invariably inter-leaved.³
 Software design is a creative activity in which you identify
software components and their relationships, based on a
customer’s requirements.
 Implementation is the process of realizing the design as a
program.

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

²Build or buy

 In a wide range of domains, it is now possible to buy off-

the-shelf systems (COTS) that can be adapted and
tailored to the users’ requirements.
 For example, if you want to implement a medical records
system, you can buy a package that is already used in hospitals.
It can be cheaper and faster to use this approach, rather than
developing a system in a conventional programming language.
 When you develop an application in this way, the design
process becomes concerned with how to use the
configuration features of that system to deliver the
system requirements.³

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

7.1 Object-oriented design using the UML

 An object-oriented system is made up of interacting

objects that include both data and operations to
manipulate that data.
 Object-oriented design processes involve designing
object classes and the relationship between these
classes.
 The classes define the objects in the system and their
interactions.
 When the design is realized as an executing program,
the objects are created dynamically from these class
definition.
Chapter 7 Design and implementation
Process activities in object-oriented design
processes

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7.1.1 System context and interactions

 Understanding the relationships between the software

that is being designed and its external environment is
essential for deciding
 how to provide the required system functionality,
 and how to structure the system to communicate with its
environment.²
 Understanding of the context also lets you establish the
boundaries of the system. Setting the system boundaries
helps you decide
 what features are implemented in the system being designed,
 and what features are in other associated systems.

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

¹Context models and interaction models

 A system context model is a structural model that

demonstrates the other systems in the environment of
the system being developed.
 An interaction model is a dynamic model that shows
how the system interacts with its environment as it is
used.

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²³System context for the weather station

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²³⁴⁵Weather station use cases

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Use case description—Report weather

System Weather station

Use case Report weather
Actors Weather information system, Weather station
Description The weather station sends a summary of the weather data that has been
collected from the instruments in the collection period to the weather
information system. The data sent are the maximum, minimum, and average
ground and air temperatures; the maximum, minimum, and average air
pressures; the maximum, minimum, and average wind speeds; the total
rainfall; and the wind direction as sampled at five-minute intervals.
Stimulus The weather information system establishes a satellite communication link
with the weather station and requests transmission of the data.
Response The summarized data is sent to the weather information system.
Comments Weather stations are usually asked to report once per hour but this frequency
may differ from one station to another and may be modified in the future.

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7.1.2 Architectural design

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²³High-level architecture of the weather station

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Architecture of data collection system

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²7.1.3 Object class identification

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²Approaches to identify object classes

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²Weather station description

A weather station is a package of software controlled instruments

which collects data, performs some data processing and transmits
this data for further processing. The instruments include air and
ground thermometers, an anemometer, a wind vane, a barometer
and a rain gauge. Data is collected periodically.

When a command is issued to transmit the weather data, the

weather station processes and summarises the collected data.
The summarised data is transmitted to the mapping computer
when a request is received.

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Weather station object classes

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¹Weather station object classes

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

Refine object design

 In object class identification stage, you should focus on

the objects themselves, without thinking about how these
objects may be implemented.
 Once you have identified the objects, you then refine the
object design. You look for common features and then
design the inheritance hierarchy for the system.
 E.g., you may identify an instrument superclass, which defines
the common features (such as an identifier, and get and test
operations) of all instruments.²

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7.1.4 Design models

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2 kinds of design model

 Static models¹ describe the static structure of the

system using object classes and their relationships.²
 Dynamic models describe the dynamic interactions
between objects.³

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3 Examples of design models

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Subsystem models

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Sequence models

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¹²³Sequence diagram describing data collection

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State diagrams

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¹²Weather station state diagram

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7.1.5 Interface specification¹

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¹²³Weather station interfaces

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

Key points

 Software design and implementation are inter-leaved activities. The

level of detail in the design depends on the type of system and
whether you are using a plan-driven or agile approach.
 The process of object-oriented design includes activities to design
the system architecture, identify objects in the system, describe the
design using different object models and document the component
interfaces.
 A range of different models may be produced during an object-
oriented design process. These include static models (class models,
generalization models, association models) and dynamic models
(sequence models, state machine models).
 Component interfaces must be defined precisely so that other
objects can use them. A UML interface stereotype² may be used to
define interfaces.
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Chapter 7 – Design and Implementation

Lecture 2

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

7.2 Design patterns

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

Pattern elements

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The Observer pattern

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The Observer pattern (1)

Pattern Observer
name
Description Separates the display of the state of an object from the object itself and
allows alternative displays to be provided. When the object state
changes, all displays are automatically notified and updated to reflect the
change.
Problem In many situations, you have to provide multiple displays of state
description information, such as a graphical display and a tabular display. Not all of
these may be known when the information is specified. All alternative
presentations should support interaction and, when the state is changed,
all displays must be updated.
This pattern may be used in all situations where more than one
display format for state information is required and where it is not
necessary for the object that maintains the state information to know
about the specific display formats used.

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

The Observer pattern (2)

Pattern name Observer

Solution This involves two abstract objects, Subject and Observer, and two concrete
description objects, ConcreteSubject and ConcreteObject, which inherit the attributes of the
related abstract objects. The abstract objects include general operations that are
applicable in all situations. The state to be displayed is maintained in
ConcreteSubject, which inherits operations from Subject allowing it to add and
remove Observers (each observer corresponds to a display) and to issue a
notification when the state has changed.

The ConcreteObserver maintains a copy of the state of ConcreteSubject and

implements the Update() interface of Observer that allows these copies to be
kept in step. The ConcreteObserver automatically displays the state and reflects
changes whenever the state is updated.

Consequences The subject only knows the abstract Observer and does not know details of the
concrete class. Therefore there is minimal coupling between these objects.
Because of this lack of knowledge, optimizations that enhance display
performance are impractical. Changes to the subject may cause a set of linked
updates to observers to be generated, some of which may not be necessary.

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

Multiple displays using the Observer pattern

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A UML model of the Observer pattern

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

Design problems

 To use patterns in your design, you need to recognize

that any design problem you are facing may have an
associated pattern that can be applied.
 Tell several objects that the state of some other object has
changed (Observer pattern).
 Tidy up the interfaces to a number of related objects that have
often been developed incrementally (Façade pattern).
 Provide a standard way of accessing the elements in a
collection, irrespective of how that collection is implemented
(Iterator pattern).
 Allow for the possibility of extending the functionality of an
existing class at run-time (Decorator pattern).

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

7.3 Implementation issues

 Focus here is not on programming, although this is

obviously important, but on other implementation issues
that are often not covered in programming texts:²
 Reuse Most modern software is constructed by reusing existing
components or systems. When you are developing software, you
should make as much use as possible of existing code.
 Configuration management During the development process,
you have to keep track of the many different versions of each
software component in a configuration management system.³
 Host-target development Production software does not usually
execute on the same computer as the software development
environment. Rather, you develop it on one computer (the host
system) and execute it on a separate computer (the target
system). ⁴
Chapter 7 Design and implementation
7.3.1 Reuse

 From the 1960s to the 1990s, most new software was

developed from scratch, by writing all code in a high-
level programming language.
 The only significant reuse or software was the reuse of functions
and objects in programming language libraries.
 ²Costs and schedule pressure mean that this approach
became increasingly unviable, especially for commercial
and Internet-based systems.
 ³An approach to development based around the reuse of
existing software emerged and is now generally used for
business, scientific software, and increasingly, in
embedded systems engineering.
Chapter 7 Design and implementation
¹Reuse levels

 The abstraction level

 At this level, you don’t reuse software directly but use knowledge
of successful abstractions² in the design of your software.
 The object level
 At this level, you directly reuse objects from a library rather than
writing the code yourself.³
 The component level
 Components are collections of objects and object classes that
operate together to provide related functions and services. ⁴
 The system level
 At this level, you reuse entire application systems.
Chapter 7 Design and implementation
²4 Reuse costs

 The costs of the time spent in looking for software to

reuse and assessing whether or not it meets your needs.
 Where applicable, the costs of buying the reusable
software. For large off-the-shelf systems, these costs
can be very high.
 The costs of adapting and configuring the reusable
software components or systems to reflect the
requirements of the system that you are developing.
 The costs of integrating reusable software elements with
each other (if you are using software from different
sources) and with the new code that you have
developed.³
Chapter 7 Design and implementation
7.3.2 Configuration management

 Configuration management is the name given to the

general process of managing a changing software
system.
 The aim of configuration management is to support the
system integration process so that all developers can
access the project code and documents in a controlled
way, find out what changes have been made, and
compile and link components to create a system.
 See also Chapter 25.

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

²3 Configuration management activities

 Version management, where support is provided to keep

track of the different versions of software components.
Version management systems include facilities to coordinate
development by several programmers.³
 System integration, where support is provided to help
developers define what versions of components are used to
create each version of a system. This description is then used
to build a system automatically by compiling and linking the
required components.
 Problem tracking, where support is provided to allow users to
report bugs and other problems, and to allow all developers to
see who is working on these problems and when they are
fixed.
Chapter 7 Design and implementation
7.3.3 Host-target development

 Most software is developed on one computer (the host), but

runs on a separate machine (the target).
 More generally, we can talk about a development platform and
an execution platform.
 A platform is more than just hardware.
 It² includes the installed operating system plus other supporting
software such as a database management system or, for development
platforms, an interactive development environment.
 If the development and execution platforms are the same,
then it is possible to develop the software and test it on the
same machine; if different, then you need to
 either move your developed software to the execution platform for
testing,
 or run a simulator on Chapter
your 7development machine.
Design and implementation
²Tools should be provided by development
platform

 An integrated compiler and syntax-directed editing

system that allows you to create, edit and compile code.
 A language debugging system.
 Graphical editing tools, such as tools to edit UML
models.
 Testing tools, such as Junit that can automatically run a
set of tests on a new version of a program.
 Project support tools that help you organize the code for
different development projects.

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Integrated development environments (IDEs)

 Software development tools are often grouped to create

an integrated development environment (IDE).
 An IDE is a set of software tools that supports different
aspects of software development, within some common
framework and user interface.
 Generally, IDEs are created to support development in a
specific programming language such as Java. The
language IDE may be developed specially, or may be an
instantiation of a general-purpose IDE, with specific
language-support tools.

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

 Component/system deployment factors to be
considered
 The hardware and software requirements of a
component
 If a component is designed for a specific hardware architecture, or relies
on some other software system, it must obviously be deployed on a
platform that provides the required hardware and software support.
 The availability requirements of the system
 High-availability systems may require components to be deployed on
more than one platform. This means that, in the event of platform failure,
an alternative implementation of the component is available.
 Component communications
 If there is a high level of communications traffic between components, it
usually makes sense to deploy them on the same platform or on
platforms that are physically close to one other. This reduces the delay
between the time a message is sent by one component and received by
another.
Chapter 7 Design and implementation
7.4 Open source development

 Open source development is an approach to software

development in which the source code of a software
system is published and volunteers are invited to
participate in the development process.
 Its roots are in the Free Software Foundation
(www.fsf.org), which advocates that source code should
not be proprietary but rather should always be available
for users to examine and modify as they wish.
 Open source software extended this idea by using the
Internet to recruit a much larger population of volunteer
developers. Many of them are also users of the code.

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

Open source systems

 The best-known open source product is, of course, the

Linux operating system which is widely used as a server
system and, increasingly, as a desktop environment.
 Other important open source products are Java, the
Apache web server and the mySQL database
management system.

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

¹2 open source issues that have to be
considered

 Should the product that is being developed make use of

open source components?
 Should an open source approach be used for the
software’s development?

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Open source business

 More and more product companies are using an open

source approach to development.
 Their business model is not reliant on selling a software
product but on selling support for that product.²
 They believe that involving the open source community
will
 allow software to be developed more cheaply,
 more quickly,
 and will create a community of users for the software.

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

7.4.1 Open source licensing

 Although a fundamental principle of open-source

development is that source code should be freely
available, this does not mean that anyone can do as they
wish with that code.
 Legally, the developer of the code (either a company or an
individual) still owns the code. They can place restrictions on
how it is used by including legally binding conditions in an open
source software license.
 Some open source developers believe that if an open source
component is used to develop a new system, then that system
should also be open source.
 Others are willing to allow their code to be used without this
restriction. The developed systems may be proprietary and sold
as closed source systems.
Chapter 7 Design and implementation
²3 license models

 The GNU General Public License (GPL). This is a so-called

‘reciprocal’ license that means that if you use open source software
that is licensed under the GPL license, then you must make that
software open source.
 The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a variant of the
GPL license where you can write components that link to open
source code without having to publish the source of these
components. However, if you change the licensed component, then
you must publish this as open source.
 The Berkley Standard Distribution (BSD) License. This is a non-
reciprocal license, which means you are not obliged to re-publish
any changes or modifications made to open source code. You can
include the code in proprietary systems that are sold. If you use
open source components, you must acknowledge the original
creator of the code. Chapter 7 Design and implementation
²³A should-do list for companies managing
projects that use open source

 Establish a system for maintaining information about

open-source components that are downloaded and
used.
 Be aware of the different types of licenses and
understand how a component is licensed before it is
used.
 Be aware of evolution pathways for components.⁴
 Educate people about open source.⁵
 Have auditing systems in place.⁶
 Participate in the open source community.⁷

Chapter 7 Design and implementation

 Key points

 When developing software, you should always consider the

possibility of reusing existing software, either as components,
services or complete systems.
 Configuration management is the process of managing changes to
an evolving software system. It is essential when a team of people
are cooperating to develop software.
 Most software development is host-target development. You use an
IDE on a host machine to develop the software, which is transferred
to a target machine for execution.
 Open source development involves making the source code of a
system publicly available. This means that many people can
propose changes and improvements to the software.

Chapter 7 Design and implementation