Sample Answers

1. What are the most important differences between generic software product development
and custom software development? What might this mean in practice for users of generic
software products?
The essential difference is that in generic software product development, the
specification is owned by the product developer. For custom product development,
the specification is owned and controlled by the customer. The implications of this are
significant the developer can quickly decide to change the specification in response
to some external change (e.g. a competing product) but, when the customer owns the
specification, changes have to be negotiated between the customer and the developer
and may have contractual implications.

For users of generic products, this means they have no control over the software
specification so cannot control the evolution of the product. The developer may
decide to include/exclude features and change the user interface. This could have
implications for the users business processes and add extra training costs when new
versions of the system are installed. It also may limit the customers flexibility to
change their own business processes.

2. Based on your own knowledge of some of the application types discussed in the textbook
(chapter 1, section 1.1.2), explain, with examples, why different application types require
specialized software engineering techniques to support their design and development.
Different application types require the use of different development techniques for a
number of reasons:
a) Costs and frequency of change. Some systems (such as embedded systems
in consumer devices) are extremely expensive to change; others, must
change frequently in response to changing requirements (e.g. business
systems). Systems which are very expensive to change need extensive
upfront analysis to ensure that the requirements are consistent and
extensive validation to ensure that the system meets its specification. This
is not cost effective for systems that change very rapidly.

b) The most important non-functional requirements. Different systems
have different priorities for non-functional requirements. For example, a
real-time control system in an aircraft has safety as its principal priority; an
interactive game has responsiveness and usability as its priority. The
techniques used to achieve safety are not required for interactive gaming;
the extensive UI design required for games is not needed in safety-critical
control systems.

c) The software lifetime and delivery schedule. Some software systems have
a relatively short lifetime (many web-based systems), others have a
lifetime of tens of years (large command and control systems). Some
systems have to be delivered quickly if they are to be useful. The
techniques used to develop short-lifetime, rapid delivery systems (e.g. use
of scripting languages, prototyping, etc.) are inappropriate for long-
lifetime systems which require techniques that allow for long-term support
such as design modelling.

3. Explain why there are fundamental ideas of software engineering that apply to all types of
software systems.

Because of all software systems have common quality attributes, including
availability, modifiability, performance, security and safety, testability and usability,
the fundamental software ideas provides common solutions or tactics to support those
qualities.

4. Giving reasons for your answer based on the type of system being developed, suggest the
most appropriate generic software process model that might be used as a basis for
managing the development of the following systems:
a) A system to control anti-lock braking in a car
b) A virtual reality system to support software maintenance
c) A university accounting system that replaces an existing system
d) An interactive travel planning system that helps users plan journey with the
lowest environment impact

a) Anti-lock braking system This is a safety-critical system so requires a lot of up-
front analysis before implementation. It certainly needs a plan-driven approach to
development with the requirements carefully analysed. A waterfall model is
therefore the most appropriate approach to use, perhaps with formal
transformations between the different development stages.

b) Virtual reality system This is a system where the requirements will change and
there will be an extensive user interface components. Incremental development
with, perhaps, some UI prototyping is the most appropriate model. An agile
process may be used.

c) University accounting system This is a system whose requirements are fairly
well-known and which will be used in an environment in conjunction with lots of
other systems such as a research grant management system. Therefore, a reuse-
based approach is likely to be appropriate for this.

d) Interactive travel planning system System with a complex user interface but
which must be stable and reliable. An incremental development approach is the
most appropriate as the system requirements will change as real user experience
with the system is gained.

5. Explain why incremental development is the most effective approach for developing
business software systems. Why is this model less appropriate for real-time systems
engineering?

Business software systems usually complex, software intensive, and frequently being
changes when business goals or processes are changed. So incremental development
is better.
Real-time systems usually involve many hardware components which are not easy to
change and cannot be incremental. Also real-time systems usually safety critical
which needed be built based on well planned process.

6. Suggest why it is important to make a distinction between developing the user
requirements and developing system requirements in the requirements engineering
process.
There is a fundamental difference between the user and the system requirements that
mean they should be considered separately.
a) The user requirements are intended to describe the systems functions and features
from a user perspective and it is essential that users understand these
requirements. They should be expressed in natural language and may not be
expressed in great detail, to allow some implementation flexibility. The people
involved in the process must be able to understand the users environment and
application domain.

b) The system requirements are much more detailed than the user requirements and
are intended to be a precise specification of the system that may be part of a
system contract. They may also be used in situations where development is
outsourced and the development team need a complete specification of what
should be developed. The system requirements are developed after user
requirements have been established.

7. Explain how the principles underlying agile methods lead to the accelerated development
and development of software.
The principles underlying agile development are:
a) Individual and interactions over processes and tools. By taking advantages of
individual skills and ability and by ensuring that the development team knows
what each other are doing, the overheads of formal communication and
process assurance are avoided. This means that the team can focus on the
development of working software.

b) Working software over comprehensive documentation. This contributes to
accelerated development because time is not spent developing, checking and
managing documentation. Rather, the programmers time is focused on the
development and testing of code.

c) Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Rather than spending time
developing, analyzing and negotiating requirements to be included in a system
contract, agile developers argue that it is more effective to get feedback from
customers directly during the development about what is required. This
allows useful functionality to be developed and delivered earlier than would
be possible if contracts were required.

d) Responding to change over following a plan. Agile developers argue (rightly)
that being responsive to change is more effective than following a plan-based
process because change is inevitable whatever process is used. There is
significant overhead in changing plans to accommodate change and the
inflexibility of a plan means that work may be done that is later discarded.

8. When would you recommend against the use of an agile method for developing a
software system? Explain your answer.
Agile methods should probably not be used when the software is being developed by
teams who are not co-located. If any of the individual teams use agile methods, it is
very difficult to coordinate their work with other teams. Furthermore, the informal
communication which is an essential part of agile methods is practically impossible to
maintain.

Agile methods should probably also be avoided for critical systems where the
consequences of a specification error are serious. In those circumstances, a system
specification that is available before development starts makes a detailed specification
analysis possible.

However, some ideas from agile approaches such as test first development are
certainly applicable to critical systems.

9. Discover ambiguities or omissions in the following statement of requirements for part of
a ticket-issuing systems:

An automated ticket-issuing system sells rail tickets. Users select their destination and
input a credit card and a personal identification number. The rail ticket is issued and
their credit card account charged. When the user presses the start button, a menu
display of potential destinations is activated, along with a message to the user to select
a destination. Once a destination has been selected, users are requested to input their
credit card. Its validity is checked and the user is then requested to input a personal
identifier. When the credit transaction has been validated, the ticket is issued.
Ambiguities and omissions include:
a) Can a customer buy several tickets for the same destination together or must they
be bought one at a time?
b) Can customers cancel a request if a mistake has been made?
c) How should the system respond if an invalid card is input?
d) What happens if customers try to put their card in before selecting a destination
(as they would in ATM machines)?
e) Must the user press the start button again if they wish to buy another ticket to a
different destination?
f) Should the system only sell tickets between the station where the machine is
situated and direct connections or should it include all possible destinations?

10. Rewrite the above description using the structured approach described in chapter 4 of the
textbook. Resolve the identified ambiguities in an appropriate way.

11. Write a set of non-functional requirements for the ticket-issuing system, setting out its
expected reliability and response time.
Possible non-functional requirements for the ticket issuing system include:
a) Between 0600 and 2300 in any one day, the total system down time should not
exceed 5 minutes.
b) Between 0600 and 2300 in any one day, the recovery time after a system
failure should not exceed 2 minutes.
c) Between 2300 and 0600 in any one day, the total system down time should not
exceed 20 minutes.

All these are availability requirements note that these vary according to the time of
day. Failures when most people are traveling are less acceptable than failures when
there are few customers.
d) After the customer presses a button on the machine, the display should be
updated within 0.5 seconds.
e) The ticket issuing time after credit card validation has been received should
not exceed 10 seconds.
f) When validating credit cards, the display should provide a status message for
customers indicating that activity is taking place. This tells the customer that
the potentially time consuming activity of validation is still in progress and
that the system has not simply failed.
g) The maximum acceptable failure rate for ticket issue requests is 1: 10000.

12. You have been asked to develop a system that will help with planning large-scale events
and parties such us weddings, graduation celebrations, birthday parties, etc.
(a) Modeling entities and their relationships which are involved in planning events
and parties using a UML class diagram.
(b) Modeling the process context for such a system that shows the activities involved
in planning a party (booking a venue, organizing invitations, etc.), using a UML
activity diagram.

13. Develop a sequence diagram showing the interactions involved when a student registers a
course in a university. Courses may have limited enrolment, so the registration process
must include checks that places are available. Assume that the student accesses an
electronic course catalog to find out about available courses.



14. Draw a UML state diagram of the control software for ONE of the follows:
An automatic washing machine that has different programs for different types of
clothes.
The software for a DVD player.
A telephone answering system that records incoming messages and displays the
number of accepted messages on an LED. The system should allow the telephone
customer to dial in from any location, type a sequence of numbers (identified as
tones), and play any recorded messages.

15. Explain why design conflicts might arise when designing an architecture for which both
availability and security requirements are the most important non-functional
requirements.

16. Draw a UML class diagram showing a conceptual view and draw a UML sequence
diagram showing a process view of the architecture of ONE of the following systems:
An automated ticket-issuing system used by passengers at a railway station
A computer-controlled video conferencing system that allows video, audio and
computer data to be visible to several participants at the same time.
A robot floor cleaner that is intended to clean relatively clear spaces such as
corridors. The cleaner must be able to sense walls and other obstructions.

17. For each of the following architectural patterns described in the textbook, describe a real-
world or example application system which should be designed using the pattern.
MVC
Layered
Repository
Client-server
Pipe and filter

18. Suggest an architecture for a system (such as iTune) that is used to sell and distribute
music on the internet. What architectural patterns are the basis for this architecture?
Explain your answer.

19. Using the basic model of an information system, as presented in Figure 6.16 of the
textbook, suggest the components that might be part of an information system that allows
users to view information about flights arriving and departing from a particular airport.

20. Using the UML graphical notation for object classes, design the following object classes,
identifying attributes and operations. Use your own experience to decide on the attributes
and operations that should be associated with these objects:
A telephone
A printer for personal computer
A personal stereo system
A bank account
A library catalog

21. Identify possible objects in ONE of the following systems and develop an object-oriented
design for them. Using a UML class diagram and associated explanation to show your
design. You may make many reasonable assumptions about the system when deriving the
design.
A group diary and time management system is intended to support the timetabling
of meetings and appointments across a group of co-workers. When an
appointment is to be made that involves a number of people, the system finds a
common slot in each of their diaries and arranges the appointment for that time. If
no common slots are available, it interacts with the user to rearrange his or her
personal diary to make room for the appointment.

A filling station (gas station) is to be set up for fully automated operation. Drivers
swipe their credit card through a reader connected to the pump; the card is verified
by communication with a credit company computer, and fuel limit is established.
The driver may then take the fuel required. When fuel delivery is complete and
the pump host is returned to its holster, the drivers credit card account is debited
with the cost of the fuel taken. The credit card is returned after debiting. If the
card is invalid, the pump returns it before fuel is dispensed.

22. For the Observer design pattern described in the textbook, describe a real-world or
example application which should be design using the pattern.

23. A small company has developed a specialized product that it configures specially for each
customer. New customers usually have specific requirements to be incorporated into their
system, and they pay for these to be developed. The company has an opportunity to bid
for a new contract, which would more than double its customer base. The new customer
also wishes to have some involvement in the configuration of the system. Explain why, in
these circumstances, it might be a good idea for the company owning the software to
make it open source.

The key benefits of open source are is that it opens up development to a wide range of
developers and so accelerates the development and debugging of the product.
Doubling the customer base places immense strains on a small company of they have
to take on a lot of new staff and so going open source means that the costs of
expansion are reduced.

In this case, because the product is specialized to the needs of different users, the
company that own the software can still charge these users to make the changes to the
system. Hence the loss in revenue from selling the software is compensated by the
additional effort available to service more customers.

Furthermore, large companies are often reluctant to buy from small companies who
may go out of business, To some extent, open source provides reassurance to
customers that, even of the original owners of the software are unavailable, they can
get access to the source code and hence continue to maintain their system.

Finally, open source may increase knowledge of the companys product and so
attract more customers.

24. It states that testing can only detect the presence of error, not their absence. Do you
agree with this statement? If yes, explain why. If not, use an example to show how?

Assume that exhaustive testing of a program, where every possible valid input is
checked, is impossible (true for all but trivial programs). Test cases either do not
reveal a fault in the program or reveal a program fault. If they reveal a program fault
then they demonstrate the presence of an error. If they do not reveal a fault, however,
this simply means that they have executed a code sequence that for the inputs
chosen is not faulty. The next test of the same code sequence with different inputs
could reveal a fault.

25. You have been asked to test a method called catWhiteSpace in a Paragraph object
that, within the paragraph, replaces sequences if blank characters with a single blank
charater. Identify testing partitions for this example and derive a set of tests for the
catWhiteSpace method.

Testing partitions are:
Strings with only single blank characters
Strings with sequences of blank characters in the middle of the string
Strings with sequences of blank characters at the beginning/end of string
Examples of tests:
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (only single blanks)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (different numbers of blanks in the
sequence)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (1st blank is a sequence)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (Last blank is a sequence)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (2 blanks at beginning)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (several blanks at beginning)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (2 blanks at end)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (several blanks at end)
Etc.

26. What is regression testing? Explain how the use of automated tests and a testing
framework such as JUnit simplifies regression testing.

Regression testing is the process of running tests for functionality that has already
been implemented when new functionality is developed or the system is changed.
Regression tests check that the system changes have not introduced problems into the
previously implemented code.

Automated tests and a testing framework, such as JUnit, radically simplify regression
testing as the entire test set can be run automatically each time a change is made. The
automated tests include their own checks that the test has been successful or otherwise
so the costs of checking the success or otherwise of regression tests is low.

27. As a software project manager in a company that specializes in the development of
software for offshore oil industry, you have been given the task of discovering the factors
that affect the maintainability of the systems developed by your company. Suggest how
you might set up a program to analyze the maintenance process and discover appropriate
maintainability metrics for your company.

This is a very open question, where there are many possible answers. Basically, the
students should identify factors which affect maintainability such as (program and
data complexity, use of meaningful identifiers, programming language, program
documentation etc.). They should then suggest how these can be evaluated in existing
systems whose maintenance cost is known and discuss problems of interaction. The
approach should be to discover those program units which have particularly high
maintenance costs and to evaluate the cost factors for these components and for other
components. Then check for correlations.

28. Briefly describe the three main types of software maintenance. Use examples to explain
why it sometimes difficult to distinguish between them?

The three main types of software maintenance are:
a) Corrective maintenance or fault repair. The changes made to the system are to
repair reported faults which may be program bugs or specification errors or
omissions.
b) Adaptive maintenance or environmental adaptation. Changing the software to
adapt it to changes in its environment e.g. changes to other software systems.
c) Perfective maintenance or functionality addition. This involves adding new
functionality or features to the system.

They are sometimes difficult to distinguish because the same set of changes may
cover all three types of maintenance. For example, a reported fault in the system may
be repaired by upgrading some other software and then adapting the system to use this
new version (corrective + adaptive). The new software may have additional
functionality and as part of the adaptive maintenance, new features may be added to
take advantage of this.

29. Under what circumstances might an organization decide to scrap a system when the
system assessment suggests that it is of high quality and of high business value?

Examples of where software might be scrapped and rewritten are:
a) When the cost of maintenance is high and the organisation has decided to
invest in new hardware. This will involve significant conversion costs anyway
so the opportunity might be taken to rewrite the software.
b) When a business process is changed and new software is required to support
the process.
c) When support for the tools and language used to develop the software is
unavailable. This is a particular problem with early 4GLs where, in many
cases, the vendors are no longer in business.

30. Do software engineers have a professional responsibility to produce code that can be
maintained and changed even if this is not explicitly requested by their employer?

Yes, this is general software quality requirements which all software engineers should
follow, unless it is specifically un-requested by the employer with good reason such
as rapid development or prototyping.