GRADUATE SCHOOL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES
ITECH6501 Principles of Software Engineering
Individual Assignment - 20 marks – refer to Course Description for weighting Semester 2011/00 Report Due Date: Refer to course description In this first assignment, two software development methodologies will be examined using the first four laws given in the prescribed text.
Glass’ law
Requirement deficiencies are the prime source of project failures. (LI)
Boehm’s first law
Errors are most frequent during the requirements and design activities and are the more expensive the later they are removed. (L2)
Boehm’s second law
Prototyping (significantly) reduces requirement and design errors, especially for user interfaces. (L3)
Davis’ law
The value of a model depends on the view taken, but none is best for all purposes. (L4)
The first software development methodology will be the Waterfall Model, the second software methodology will be one of either Agile Methodology or the Rational Unified Process (RUP or UP).
For both the software development methodologies do the following:
1. Describe each law in your own words. Illustrate with a practical example.
[2 + 2 = 4 marks]
2. Your first task is to describe each software development methodology clearly and completely in your own words. You may use diagrams, examples or UML to help you do this.
[2 + 2 = 4 marks]
3. Using the first four laws of the text, show where these are either implemented or missing in each software development methodology (Total Two). If a law is missing, explain the consequences and suggest how the process might be improved.
[4 + 4 = 8 marks]
4. For each software development methodology, give an example of a project which it would be well suited for and one which it would be inappropriate for (Total Two projects for each software development methodology).
[2 + 2