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Software Peter Principle
The Software Peter principle is used in software engineering to describe a dying project which has become too complex to be understood even by its own developers. It is well known in the industry as a silent killer of projects, but by the time the symptoms arise it is often too late to do anything about it. Good managers can avoid this disaster by establishing clear coding practices where unnecessarily complicated code and design is avoided. The name is used in the book ''C++ FAQs'' (see below), and is derived from the Peter principle – a theory about incompetence in hierarchical organizations. Causes Loss of conceptual integrity The conceptual integrity of software is a measure of how well it conforms to a single, simple set of design principles, according to ''The Mythical Man Month''. When done properly, it provides the most functionality using the simplest idioms. It makes software easier to use by making it simple to create and learn. Conceptual integrity i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Software Engineering
Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principles and computer programming expertise to develop software systems that meet user needs. The terms ''programmer'' and ''coder'' overlap ''software engineer'', but they imply only the construction aspect of a typical software engineer workload. A software engineer applies a software development process, which involves defining, Implementation, implementing, Software testing, testing, Project management, managing, and Software maintenance, maintaining software systems, as well as developing the software development process itself. History Beginning in the 1960s, software engineering was recognized as a separate field of engineering. The development of software engineering was seen as a struggle. Problems included software that was over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Conceptual Integrity
''The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering'' is a book on software engineering and project management by Fred Brooks first published in 1975, with subsequent editions in 1982 and 1995. Its central theme is that adding manpower to a software project that is behind schedule delays it even longer. This idea is known as Brooks's law, and is presented along with the second-system effect and advocacy of prototyping. Brooks's observations are based on his experiences at IBM while managing the development of OS/360. He had added more programmers to a project falling behind schedule, a decision that he would later conclude had, counter-intuitively, delayed the project even further. He also made the mistake of asserting that one project—involved in writing an ALGOL compiler—would require six months, regardless of the number of workers involved (it required longer). The tendency for managers to repeat such errors in project development led Brooks to quip that his book is cal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Software Design
Software design is the process of conceptualizing how a software system will work before it is implemented or modified. Software design also refers to the direct result of the design process the concepts of how the software will work which consists of both design documentation and undocumented concepts. Software design usually is directed by goals for the resulting system and involves problem-solving and planning including both high-level software architecture and low-level component and algorithm design. In terms of the waterfall development process, software design is the activity of following requirements specification and before coding. General process The design process enables a designer to model various aspects of a software system before it exists. Creativity, past experience, a sense of what makes "good" software, and a commitment to quality are success factors for a competent design. However, the design process is not always a straightforward procedure ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
The Mythical Man Month
''The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering'' is a book on software engineering and project management by Fred Brooks first published in 1975, with subsequent editions in 1982 and 1995. Its central theme is that adding manpower to a software project that is behind schedule delays it even longer. This idea is known as Brooks's law, and is presented along with the second-system effect and advocacy of prototyping. Brooks's observations are based on his experiences at IBM while managing the development of OS/360. He had added more programmers to a project falling behind schedule, a decision that he would later conclude had, counter-intuitively, delayed the project even further. He also made the mistake of asserting that one project—involved in writing an ALGOL compiler—would require six months, regardless of the number of workers involved (it required longer). The tendency for managers to repeat such errors in project development led Brooks to quip that his book is ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Function (engineering)
In engineering, a function is interpreted as a specific process, action or task that a system is able to perform.R.Barker, C. Longman, Case Method: Function and Process Modelling, Addison-Wesley Professional, 1992. In engineering design In the lifecycle of engineering projects, there are usually distinguished subsequently: ''Requirements'' and ''Functional specification'' documents. The ''Requirements'' usually specifies the most important attributes of the requested system. In the ''Design specification'' documents, physical or software processes and systems are frequently the requested functions In products For advertising and marketing of technical products, the number of functions they can perform is often counted and used for promotion. For example a calculator capable of the basic mathematical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, would be called a "four-function" model; when other operations are added, for example for scientific, financial, or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Programming Idiom
In computer programming, a programming idiom, code idiom or simply idiom is a code fragment having a semantic role which recurs frequently across software projects. It often expresses a special feature of a recurring construct in one or more programming languages, frameworks or libraries. This definition is rooted in the linguistic definition of "idiom". The idiom can be seen by developers as an action on a programming concept underlying a pattern in code, which is represented in implementation by contiguous or scattered code snippets. Generally speaking, a programming idiom's semantic role is a natural language expression of a simple task, algorithm, or data structure that is not a built-in feature in the programming language being used, or, conversely, the use of an unusual or notable feature that ''is'' built into a programming language. Knowing the idioms associated with a programming language and how to use them is an important part of gaining fluency in that language. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Software Architecture
Software architecture is the set of structures needed to reason about a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. Each structure comprises software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements and relations. The ''architecture'' of a software system is a metaphor, analogous to the architecture of a building. It functions as the blueprints for the system and the development project, which project management can later use to extrapolate the tasks necessary to be executed by the teams and people involved. Software architecture is about making fundamental structural choices that are costly to change once implemented. Software architecture choices include specific structural options from possibilities in Software design, the design of the software. There are two fundamental laws in software architecture: # Everything is a trade-off # "Why is more important than how" "Architectural Kata" is a teamwork which can be used to produce an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Software Developer
Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, writing source code, code, in that it includes conceiving the goal, evaluating feasibility, analyzing software requirements, requirements, software design, design, software testing, testing and software release life cycle, release. The process is part of software engineering which also includes management, organizational management, Software project management, project management, configuration management and other aspects. Software development involves many skills and job specializations including software programmer, programming, software test, testing, Technical writing, documentation, graphic design, user support, marketing, and fundraising. Software development involves many software tools, tools including: compiler, integrated develo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Code Complete
''Code Complete'' is a software development book, written by Steve McConnell and published in 1993 by Microsoft Press, encouraging developers to continue past code-and-fix programming and the big design up front and waterfall models. It is also a compendium of software construction techniques, which include techniques from naming variables to deciding when to write a subroutine. Summary McConnell defines the main activities in software construction as detailed design, construction planning, coding and debugging, unit testing Unit testing, component or module testing, is a form of software testing by which isolated source code is tested to validate expected behavior. Unit testing describes tests that are run at the unit-level to contrast testing at the Integration ..., integration and integration testing. Although he does not dismiss the value of other aspects of software development such as requirements and documentation, McConnell emphasises the construction of soft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Code Smell
In computer programming, a code smell is any characteristic in the source code of a program that possibly indicates a deeper problem. Determining what is and is not a code smell is subjective, and varies by language, developer, and development methodology. The term was popularized by Kent Beck on WardsWiki in the late 1990s. Usage of the term increased after it was featured in the 1999 book ''Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code'' by Martin Fowler. It is also a term used by agile programmers. Definition One way to look at smells is with respect to principles and quality: "Smells are certain structures in the code that indicate violation of fundamental design principles and negatively impact design quality". Code smells are usually not bugs; they are not technically incorrect and do not prevent the program from functioning. Instead, they indicate weaknesses in design that may slow down development or increase the risk of bugs or failures in the future. Bad code ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Refactoring
In computer programming and software design, code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing source code—changing the '' factoring''—without changing its external behavior. Refactoring is intended to improve the design, structure, and/or implementation of the software (its '' non-functional'' attributes), while preserving its functionality. Potential advantages of refactoring may include improved code readability and reduced complexity; these can improve the source code's maintainability and create a simpler, cleaner, or more expressive internal architecture or object model to improve extensibility. Another potential goal for refactoring is improved performance; software engineers face an ongoing challenge to write programs that perform faster or use less memory. Typically, refactoring applies a series of standardized basic ''micro-refactorings'', each of which is (usually) a tiny change in a computer program's source code that either preserves the behavior of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
