About the Book

A complete introduction to building robust and reliable software

Beginning Software Engineering demystifies the software engineering methodologies and techniques that professional developers use to design and build robust, efficient, and consistently reliable software. Free of jargon and assuming no previous programming, development, or management experience, this accessible guide explains important concepts and techniques that can be applied to any programming language. Each chapter ends with exercises that let you test your understanding and help you elaborate on the chapter's main concepts. Everything you need to understand waterfall, Sashimi, agile, RAD, Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming, and many other development models is inside!


•Describes in plain English what software engineering is
•Explains the roles and responsibilities of team members working on a software engineering project
•Outlines key phases that any software engineering effort must handle to produce applications that are powerful and dependable
•Details the most popular software development methodologies and explains the different ways they handle critical development tasks
•Incorporates exercises that expand upon each chapter's main ideas
•Includes an extensive glossary of software engineering terms

About the Author

Rod Stephens started out as a mathematician but while studying at MIT he discovered the joys of computer algorithms and has been programming professionally ever since. Rod is an award-winning instructor; he speaks regularly at programming conferences and user's group meetings.

Table of Contents:
INTRODUCTION PART I: SOFTWARE ENGINEERING STEP-BY-STEP CHAPTER 1: SOFTWARE ENGINEERING FROM 20,000 FEET Requirements Gathering High-Level Design Low-Level Design Development Testing Deployment Maintenance Wrap-up Everything All at Once Summary CHAPTER 2: BEFORE THE BEGINNING Document Management Historical Documents E-mail Code Code Documentation Application Documentation Summary CHAPTER 3: PROJECT MANAGEMENT Executive Support Project Management PERT Charts Critical Path Methods Gantt Charts Scheduling Software Predicting Times Get Experience Break Unknown Tasks into Simpler Pieces Look for Similarities Expect the Unexpected Track Progress Risk Management Summary CHAPTER 4: REQUIREMENT GATHERING Requirements Defi ned Clear Unambiguous Consistent Prioritized Verifiable Words to Avoid Requirement Categories Audience-Oriented Requirements Business Requirements User Requirements Functional Requirements Nonfunctional Requirements Implementation Requirements FURPS FURPS+ Common Requirements Gathering Requirements Listen to Customers (and Users) Use the Five Ws (and One H) Who What When Where Why How Study Users Refining Requirements Copy Existing Systems Clairvoyance Brainstorm Recording Requirements UML User Stories Use Cases Prototypes Requirements Specification Validation and Verification Changing Requirements Summary CHAPTER 5: HIGH]LEVEL DESIGN The Big Picture What to Specify Security Hardware User Interface Internal Interfaces External Interfaces Architecture Monolithic Client/Server Component-Based Service-Oriented Data-Centric Event-Driven Rule-Based Distributed Mix and Match Reports Other Outputs Database Audit Trails User Access Database Maintenance Configuration Data Data Flows and States Training UML Structure Diagrams Behavior Diagrams Activity Diagrams Use Case Diagram State Machine Diagram Interaction Diagrams Sequence Diagram Communication Diagram Timing Diagram Interaction Overview Diagram Summary CHAPTER 6: LOW]LEVEL DESIGN OO Design Identifying Classes Building Inheritance Hierarchies Refinement Generalization Hierarchy Warning Signs Object Composition Database Design Relational Databases First Normal Form Second Normal Form Third Normal Form Higher Levels of Normalization Summary CHAPTER 7: DEVELOPMENT 143 Use the Right Tools Hardware Network Development Environment Source Code Control Profilers Static Analysis Tools Testing Tools Source Code Formatters Refactoring Tools Training Selecting Algorithms Effective Efficient Predictable Simple Prepackaged Top-Down Design Programming Tips and Tricks Be Alert Write for People, Not the Computer Comment First Write Self-Documenting Code Keep It Small Stay Focused Avoid Side Effects Validate Results Practice Offensive Programming Use Exceptions Write Exception Handers First Don't Repeat Code Defer Optimization Summary CHAPTER 8: TESTING Testing Goals Reasons Bugs Never Die Diminishing Returns Deadlines Consequences It's Too Soon Usefulness Obsolescence It's Not a Bug It Never Ends It's Better Than Nothing Fixing Bugs Is Dangerous Which Bugs to Fix Levels of Testing Unit Testing Integration Testing Automated Testing Component Interface Testing System Testing Acceptance Testing Other Testing Categories Testing Techniques Exhaustive Testing Black-Box Testing White-Box Testing Gray-Box Testing Testing Habits Test and Debug When Alert Test Your Own Code Have Someone Else Test Your Code Fix Your Own Bugs Think Before You Change Don't Believe in Magic See What Changed Fix Bugs, Not Symptoms Test Your Tests How to Fix a Bug Estimating Number of Bugs Tracking Bugs Found Seeding The Lincoln Index Summary CHAPTER 9: DEPLOYMENT Scope The Plan Cutover Staged Deployment Gradual Cutover Incremental Deployment Parallel Testing Deployment Tasks Deployment Mistakes Summary CHAPTER 10: METRICS Wrap Party Defect Analysis Kinds of Bugs Discoverer Severity Time Created Age at Fix Task Type Ishikawa Diagrams Software Metrics Qualities of Good Attributes and Metrics Using Metrics Process Metrics Project Metrics Things to Measure Size Normalization Function Point Normalization Count Function Point Metrics Multiply by Complexity Factors Calculate Complexity Adjustment Value Calculate Adjusted FP Summary CHAPTER 11: MAINTENANCE Maintenance Costs Task Categories Perfective Tasks Feature Improvements New Features The Second System Effect Adaptive Tasks Corrective Tasks Preventive Tasks Clarification Code Reuse Improved Flexibility Bug Swarms Bad Programming Practices Individual Bugs Not Invented Here Task Execution Summary PART II: PROCESS MODELS CHAPTER 12: PREDICTIVE MODELS Model Approaches Prerequisites Predictive and Adaptive Success and Failure Indicators Advantages and Disadvantages Waterfall Waterfall with Feedback Sashimi Incremental Waterfall V-Model Systems Development Life Cycle Summary CHAPTER 13: ITERATIVE MODELS Iterative Versus Predictive Iterative Versus Incremental Prototypes Types of Prototypes Pros and Cons Spiral Clarifications Pros and Cons Unified Process Pros and Cons Rational Unified Process Cleanroom Summary CHAPTER 14: RAD RAD Principles James Martin RAD Agile Self-Organizing Teams Agile Techniques Communication Incremental Development Focus on Quality XP XP Roles XP Values XP Practices Have a Customer On Site Play the Planning Game Use Standup Meetings Make Frequent Small Releases Use Intuitive Metaphors Keep Designs Simple Defer Optimization Refactor When Necessary Give Everyone Ownership of the Code Use Coding Standards Promote Generalization Use Pair Programming Test Constantly Integrate Continuously Work Sustainably Use Test-Driven and Test-First Development Scrum Scrum Roles Scrum Sprints Planning Poker Burndown Velocity Lean Lean Principles Crystal Crystal Clear Crystal Yellow Crystal Orange Feature-Driven Development FDD Roles FDD Phases Develop a Model Build a Feature List Plan by Feature Design by Feature Build by Feature FDD Iteration Milestones Agile Unified Process Disciplined Agile Delivery DAD Principles DAD Roles DAD Phases Dynamic Systems Development Method DSDM Phases DSDM Principles DSDM Roles Kanban Kanban Principles Kanban Practices Kanban Board Summary APPENDIX: SOLUTIONS TO EXERCISES GLOSSARY INDEX