Archive for 'Design Issues' Category
The Baker’s Dozen Of Use Cases – Part 2
18 August 2010RULE 1: Use Cases Aren’t Silver Bullets There are a couple of popular misconceptions around use cases: Misconception 1: The use cases are the requirements of the system Contrary to what many engineers believe (and many authors have written) the complete set of use cases do NOT constitute its full set of requirements for the [...]
The Baker’s Dozen of Use Cases
30 July 2010Use cases have become a core part of the requirements analyst’s arsenal. Used well they can bring dramatic increases in customer satisfaction and a whole host of other subtle benefits to software development. The use case itself is very simple in concept: describe the functionality of the system in terms of interactions between the system and its external [...]
Elizabethan guidance on Object-Oriented software design
24 June 2010So what did the Elizabethans know about software development? Well, in truth, nothing whatsoever. But what they had begun to do is codify and systematise the knowledge and experience of masters in manuals, treatises and books. Some of the earliest documents of this form refer to the martial arts or, as it was known at [...]
The Psychology of Everyday Things
5 March 2010On my recent trip to e mbedded world in Nuremberg, the lift (elevator) system in the hotel only had a single button to call the lift car. This caused various problems as there was no ability to select direction of travel. My room wasn’t on the top floor, so when the doors opened I had [...]