Integrating automated structured analysis and design with Ada programming support environments

Ada Programming Support Environments (APSE) include many powerful tools that address the implementation of Ada code. These tools do not address the entire software development process. Structured analysis is a methodology that addresses the creation of complete and accurate system specifications. Structured design takes a specification and derives a plan to decompose the system subcomponents, and provides heuristics to optimize the software design to minimize errors and maintenance. It can also produce the creation of useable modules. Studies have shown that most software errors result from poor system specifications, and that these errors also become more expensive to fix as the development process continues. Structured analysis and design help to uncover error in the early stages of development. The APSE tools help to insure that the code produced is correct, and aid in finding obscure coding errors. However, they do not have the capability to detect errors in specifications or to detect poor designs. An automated system for structured analysis and design TEAMWORK, which can be integrated with an APSE to support software systems development from specification through implementation is described. These tools completement each other to help developers improve quality and productivity, as well as to reduce development and maintenance costs. Complete system documentation and reusable code also resultss from the use of these tools. Integrating an APSE with automated tools for structured analysis and design provide capabilities and advantages beyond those realized with any of these systems used by themselves

Historical roots of Agile methods: where did “Agile thinking” come from?

The appearance of Agile methods has been the most noticeable change to software process thinking in the last fifteen years [16], but in fact many of the “Agile ideas” have been around since 70’s or even before. Many studies and reviews have been conducted about Agile methods which ascribe their emergence as a reaction against traditional methods. In this paper, we argue that although Agile methods are new as a whole, they have strong roots in the history of software engineering. In addition to the iterative and incremental approaches that have been in use since 1957 [21], people who criticised the traditional methods suggested alternative approaches which were actually Agile ideas such as the response to change, customer involvement, and working software over documentation. The authors of this paper believe that education about the history of Agile thinking will help to develop better understanding as well as promoting the use of Agile methods. We therefore present and discuss the reasons behind the development and introduction of Agile methods, as a reaction to traditional methods, as a result of people's experience, and in particular focusing on reusing ideas from histor

Contrasting the Necessary Skills of Leaders in Classical and Agile Software Development

As a consequence of the necessities of the digital age, agility is becoming more and more important in software development. Consequently, agile change management is increasingly coming into focus and many projects are undergoing a transformation process from classic software development to agile software development. Through this, managers are confronted with new tasks and requirements. To explore the associated effects and needs, this publication examines how managers who have worked in traditional software development apply their skills learned there to agile software development. For this purpose, six interviews with industry experts were conducted and the corresponding results are presented and discussed

Considerations in development of expert systems for real-time space applications

Over the years, demand on space systems has increased tremendously and this trend will continue for the near future. Enhanced capabilities of space systems, however, can only be met with increased complexity and sophistication of onboard and ground systems. Artificial Intelligence and expert system techniques have great potential in space applications. Expert systems could facilitate autonomous decision making, improve in-orbit fault diagnosis and repair, enhance performance and reduce reliance on ground support. However, real-time expert systems, unlike conventional off-line consultative systems, have to satisfy certain special stringent requirements before they could be used for onboard space applications. Challenging and interesting new environments are faced while developing expert system space applications. This paper discusses the special characteristics, requirements and typical life cycle issues for onboard expert systems. Further, it also describes considerations in design, development, and implementation which are particularly important to real-time expert systems for space applications

Verifying performance requirements

Today, it is impossible to verify performance requirements on Ada software, except in a very approximate sense. There are several reasons for this difficulty, of which the main reason is the lack of use of information on the mapping of the program onto the target machine. An approach to a partial solution to the verification of performance requirements on Ada software is proposed, called the rule based verification approach. This approach is suitable when the target machine is well defined and when additional effort and expense are justified in order to guarantee that the performance requirements will be met by the final system

REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING FOR HYBRID PRODUCTS AS BUNDLES OF HARDWARE, SOFTWARE AND SERVICE ELEMENTS – A LITERATURE REVIEW

In this paper we compare different approaches and show the need for systematic requirements engineering for hybrid products beyond disciplinary boundaries. Hybrid products consist of combinations of hardware, software and service elements. The purpose of this paper is to report on a literature review on requirements engineering for hybrid products. Each academic discipline involved (software engineering, product engineering and service engineering) has a different view on requirements engineering. The goal of the literature review is to discover how the approaches of each discipline are able to cope with requirements engineering for hybrid products

Requirements, design and business process reengineering as vital parts of any system development methodology

This thesis analyzes different aspects of system development life cycle, concentrating on the requirements and design stages. It describes various methodologies, methods and tools that have been developed over the years. It evaluates them and compares them against each other. Finally a conclusion is made that there is a very important stage missing in the system development life cycle, which is the Business Process Reengineering Stage

Rigorous Validation of Systems Security Engineering Analytics

In response to the asymmetric advantage that attackers enjoy over defenders in cyber systems, the cyber community has generated a steady stream of cybersecurity-related frameworks, methodologies, analytics, and “best practices” lists. However, these artifacts almost never under-go rigorous validation of their efficacy but instead tend to be accepted on faith, to, we suggest, our collective detriment based on evidence of continued attacker success. But what would rigorous validation look like, and can we afford it? This paper describes the design and estimates the cost of a controlled experiment whose goal is to deter-mine the effectiveness of an exemplar systems security analytic. Given the significant footprint that humans play in cyber systems (e.g., their design, use, attack, and defense), any such experiment must necessarily take into account and control for variable human behavior. Thus, the paper reinforces the argument that cybersecurity can be understood as a hybrid discipline with strong technical and human dimensions