Software Development Process

Question 1

3 Main Areas of Software Engineering

Answer 1

Software Development
Software Maintenance
Software Management

Question 2

What does software development entail?

Answer 2

Following all phases of the software lifecycle

Question 3

What does software maintenance involve?

Answer 3

Incorporating changes into an existing system

Question 4

What does software management include?

Answer 4

Estimating development costs, scheduling, and planning development tasks

Question 5

What are two goals of software engineering?

Answer 5

1. Dealing with the large size & complexity of software systems
2. Producing high-quality software that satisfies quality requirements

Question 6

What are the 3 main categories of software systems?

Answer 6

Application Software
System Software
Software Tools

Question 7

What is application software? (Definition)

Answer 7

Programs developed to solve a specific problem for a specific client

Question 8

What is system software? (Definition)

Answer 8

Software that controls the communication between hardware and programs (operating software) or establishes communication between devices (networking software)

Question 9

What are some examples of types of application software?

Answer 9

Scheduling, e-commerce, communication

Question 10

What are some examples of software tools?

Answer 10

Data management systems, IDEs, debuggers, compilers, etc.

Question 11

What are 4 categories of application software?

Answer 11

Critical
Distributed
Real-time
Dynamic

Question 12

What are safety-critical systems?

Answer 12

Critical software that can have a catastrophic impact on human lives, the environment, or the economy.

Question 13

What are distributed systems?

Answer 13

Software components deployed on several hardware devices.

Question 14

What is a real-time system?

Answer 14

Systems that respond in time to events.

Question 15

What is a dynamic software system?

Answer 15

Systems where the configuration or architecture changes during runtime.

Question 16

What organizations provide a code of ethics for software development?

Answer 16

ACM (Association for Computing Machinery)
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)

Question 17

What are the 7 points of the code of ethics for software development?

Answer 17

Public Interest
Client & Employer
Product Quality
Integrity of Software Developers
Integrity of Managers
Integrity of the Profession
Supporting Colleagues

Question 18

What are the 5 phases of the software development life cycle?

Answer 18

Feasibility Study > Analysis > Design > Implementation > Testing

Question 19

What is the software feasibility study?

Answer 19

Determining whether to proceed with a software proposal.

Question 20

What is software analysis?

Answer 20

Describing the problem requirements in terms of functional and quality requirements.

Question 21

What is software design?

Answer 21

Developing a high-level solution to the problem requirements, aka software modelling.

Question 22

What is software implementation?

Answer 22

Actualize the solution using programming languages and environments.

Question 23

What is software testing?

Answer 23

Checking if the problem is solved and verifying quality requirements.

Question 24

What does software maintenance include?

Answer 24

Improving, extending, or adapting existing software.

Question 25

What are the 3 tasks of an economic feasibility study?

Answer 25

1. Determine the benefit of a new product 2. Estimate the total cost of development 3. Weigh the cost against the benefit

Question 26

What are the 3 tasks of the software analysis phase?

Answer 26

1. Requirements Elicitation 2. Requirements Specification 3. Requirements Validation

Question 27

What are the two types of requirements?

Answer 27

1. Functional - functions or services an application offers 2. Quality - security, scalability, and robustness

Question 28

What does viewing the software as a “black box” mean in the analysis phase?

Answer 28

Focusing on the external behaviour and interactions with the environment.

Question 29

What are some ways used to specify functional requirements?

Answer 29

Data Flow Diagrams Use Case Scenarios Finite State Machines (FSM) Formal Methods

Question 30

What is the focus of the software design phase?

Answer 30

The internal structure and behaviour of the software.

Question 31

What are the two phases of software design?

Answer 31

1. High-level design (top-level software architecture) 2. Detailed design (refining architecture into models)

Question 32

What is software architecture?

Answer 32

The organization of the software system into main components and their interfaces.

Question 33

What is the goal of software architecture?

Answer 33

Constructing a solution that satisfies functional and quality requirements (e.g. maintainability)

Question 34

What are architectural styles?

Answer 34

Patterns like MVC or n-layer that define rules of interaction between components.

Question 35

What is detailed design?

Answer 35

Refining each component of the software architecture into sub-components until reaching modules.

Question 36

What are design patterns?

Answer 36

Templates describing well-known design problems and general solutions.

Question 37

What happens after the software design phase?

Answer 37

The solution is implemented using programming languages, software environments, and tools.

Question 38

What are some examples of programming paradigms?

Answer 38

Multi-threaded programming and object-oriented programming

Question 39

What is the software testing phase?

Answer 39

Evaluating each software quality by defining test cases.

Question 40

What are the 3 types of software testing?

Answer 40

1. Unit testing (single component) 2. Integration testing (interaction between components) 3. System testing (entire application)

Question 41

Why is software testing an expensive phase?

Answer 41

Evaluating many quality requirements and modifying the program when errors are found

Question 42

What are the 5 types of software maintenance?

Answer 42

1. Corrective (fixing bugs) 2. Perfective (improving quality) 3. Adaptive (adopting new technologies) 4. Preventative (updating documentation) 5. Enhancing (including new functional requirements)

Question 43

Why is software maintenance challenging?

Answer 43

Changes can break existing functionality and quality.

Question 44

What UML diagrams are used in functional requirements specification?

Answer 44

Use Case & Activity Diagrams

Question 45

What UML diagrams are used in the software design phase?

Answer 45

Class diagrams

Question 46

What UML diagrams are used in the software implementation phase?

Answer 46

Component diagrams

Question 47

What are the main concepts in a use case diagram?

Answer 47

Actor, use case, and association

Question 48

What are the main concepts in an activity diagram?

Answer 48

Activity state, action flow, and decision node

Question 49

What are the main concepts in a class diagram?

Answer 49

Classes & relationships (inheritance, association, aggregation, composition, dependency)

Question 50

What are the main concepts in a component diagram?

Answer 50

Software components (files) and dependencies between them.

Question 51

What are the main concepts in a deployment diagram?

Answer 51

Nodes (hardware) and associations (network protocols).

Question 52

What are heavyweight process models?

Answer 52

Models with comprehensive planning, extensive documentation, and detailed design (e.g. waterfall, v-model)

Question 53

What are lightweight process models?

Answer 53

Models with short planning cycles, minimal documentation, and code-oriented approaches (e.g. prototyping, spiral, agile)