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Relating software requirements and design

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Lawrence PetersAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the software quality assurance workshop on Functional and performance issues

Pages 67 - 71

https://doi.org/10.1145/800283.811102

Published: 01 January 1978 Publication History

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Abstract

Software development is a process which has evolved into a number of phases. Although the names of the phases and some of their characteristics differ from contractor to contractor and customer to customer, the functional similarities among sets of phases cannot be ignored. The basic software development scenario depicted by these phases starts with problem identification and definition, requirements specification, design, code, test, and installation and maintenance. Although some “smearing&rdquo of one phase activity into other(s) may occur, this represents the basic flow. However, it is just that smearing which occurs between requirements and design that we wish to explore here.

Identifying or defining problems and solving problems are viewed by many to be separate, distinguishable activities. They are complementary in that one identifies what must be done (requirements) while the other depicts how it will be done (design). But software designers complain bitterly that requirements are poorly defined while customers and analysts often complain that the design is not responsive to the problem(s) as they perceive it. Somehow software designers end up discovering previously unknown requirements and end up solving a problem which is foreign to the customer. Is there a workable mechanism to reduce this difficulty?

References

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Rittel, H.W.J. and Webber, M. M., "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning," Policy Sciences, 4, 1973, pp. 155-169.

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Hori, S., "CAM-I Long Range Planning Final Report for 1972," IIT Research Institute, December, 1972.

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Peters, L. J. and Tripp, L. L., "Design Representation Schemes", Proceedings of the MRI Symposium on Software Engineering, 1977.

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Softech, Inc., "An Introduction to SADT", Softech document #9022-78, February, 1976.

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Peters, L. J., Smith, G. L., Leck, V. G., and Lamb, S. A., "SAMM: A Modeling Tool for Requirements and Design Specification," Proceedings of COMPSAC, 1978.

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National Bureau of Standards Workshop on Software Requirements Standards, Gaithersburg, Maryland, March, 1978.

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Cited By

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Brice LConnell J(1983)A methodology for minimizing maintenance costsProceedings of the May 16-19, 1983, national computer conference10.1145/1500676.1500692(113-121)Online publication date: 16-May-1983
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1500676.1500692
Klausner AKonchan TBranstad MZelkowitz MSquires S(1982)Rapid prototyping and requirements specification using PDSProceedings of the workshop on Rapid prototyping10.1145/1006259.1006277(96-105)Online publication date: 19-Apr-1982
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1006259.1006277
Klausner AKonchan T(1982)Rapid prototyping and requirements specification using PDSACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes10.1145/1006258.10062777:5(96-105)Online publication date: 19-Apr-1982
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1006258.1006277
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Index Terms

Relating software requirements and design
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Management of computing and information systems
      1. Software management
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Designing software
      1. Requirements analysis
      2. Software implementation planning
        Software design techniques
    2. Software development process management

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Software requirements: Are they really a problem?
ICSE '76: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Software engineering

Do requirements arise naturally from an obvious need, or do they come about only through diligent effort—and even then contain problems? Data on two very different types of software requirements were analyzed to determine what kinds of problems occur ...
Relating software requirements and design

Software development is a process which has evolved into a number of phases. Although the names of the phases and some of their characteristics differ from contractor to contractor and customer to customer, the functional similarities among sets of ...
Relating software requirements and design

Software development is a process which has evolved into a number of phases. Although the names of the phases and some of their characteristics differ from contractor to contractor and customer to customer, the functional similarities among sets of ...

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Information

Published In

Proceedings of the software quality assurance workshop on Functional and performance issues

January 1978

187 pages

ISBN:9781450373944

DOI:10.1145/800283

ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review Volume 7, Issue 3-4
November 1978
182 pages
ISSN:0163-5999
DOI:10.1145/1007775
Issue’s Table of Contents
ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes Volume 3, Issue 5
November 1978
182 pages
ISSN:0163-5948
DOI:10.1145/953579
Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 January 1978

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Cited By

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Brice LConnell J(1983)A methodology for minimizing maintenance costsProceedings of the May 16-19, 1983, national computer conference10.1145/1500676.1500692(113-121)Online publication date: 16-May-1983
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1500676.1500692
Klausner AKonchan TBranstad MZelkowitz MSquires S(1982)Rapid prototyping and requirements specification using PDSProceedings of the workshop on Rapid prototyping10.1145/1006259.1006277(96-105)Online publication date: 19-Apr-1982
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1006259.1006277
Klausner AKonchan T(1982)Rapid prototyping and requirements specification using PDSACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes10.1145/1006258.10062777:5(96-105)Online publication date: 19-Apr-1982
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1006258.1006277
Rosengard P(1979)Workshop ReportComputer10.1109/MC.1979.165862312:2(84-85)Online publication date: 1-Feb-1979
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/MC.1979.1658623
Lamb SLeck VPeters LSmith G(1978)SAMM: A modeling tool for requirements and design specificationThe IEEE Computer Society's Second International Computer Software and Applications Conference, 1978. COMPSAC '78.10.1109/CMPSAC.1978.810306(48-53)Online publication date: 1978
https://doi.org/10.1109/CMPSAC.1978.810306
Carey TMason R(2016)Information System Prototyping: Techniques, Tools, And MethodologiesINFOR: Information Systems and Operational Research10.1080/03155986.1983.1173189721:3(177-191)Online publication date: 25-May-2016
https://doi.org/10.1080/03155986.1983.11731897
Mohammad AFreeman D(2009)Supply Chain Requirements Engineering: A Simulated Reality CheckInnovations and Advances in Computer Sciences and Engineering10.1007/978-90-481-3658-2_24(135-140)Online publication date: 28-Dec-2009
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3658-2_24

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Software requirements: Are they really a problem?