Fundamental Knowledge on Software

Engineering

Lecture 2
 Topics covered

• Professional software development

– What is meant by software engineering.
• Software engineering ethics
– A brief introduction to ethical issues that affect software
engineering.
• Case studies
– An introduction to three/four examples that are used in later
chapters in the slides.

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 Frequently asked question : Software Engineering
Question Answer

What is software? Computer programs and associated documentation.

Software products may be developed for a particular
customer or may be developed for a general market.
What are the attributes of good software? Good software should deliver the required functionality
and performance to the user and should be maintainable,
dependable and usable.
What is software engineering? Software engineering is an engineering discipline that is
concerned with all aspects of software production.
What are the fundamental software Software specification, software development, software
engineering activities? validation and software evolution.
What is the difference between software Computer science focuses on theory and fundamentals;
engineering and computer science? software engineering is concerned with the practicalities of
developing and delivering useful software.
What is the difference between software System engineering is concerned with all aspects of
engineering and system engineering? computer-based systems development including hardware,
software and process engineering. Software engineering is
part of this more general process.

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 Frequently asked question : Software Engineering
Question Answer
What are the key challenges facing Coping with increasing diversity, demands for reduced
software engineering? delivery times and developing trustworthy software.
What are the costs of software engineering? Roughly 60% of software costs are development costs, 40%
are testing costs. For custom software, evolution costs often
exceed development costs.
What are the best software engineering While all software projects have to be professionally
techniques and methods? managed and developed, different techniques are
appropriate for different types of system. For example,
games should always be developed using a series of
prototypes whereas safety critical control systems require a
complete and analyzable specification to be developed. You
can’t, therefore, say that one method is better than another.

What differences has the web made to The web has led to the availability of software services and
software engineering? the possibility of developing highly distributed service-
based systems. Web-based systems development has led to
important advances in programming languages and
software reuse.

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 Essential attributes of good software
Product characteristic Description

Maintainability Software should be written in such a way so that it can evolve to meet the
changing needs of customers. This is a critical attribute because software
change is an inevitable requirement of a changing business environment.

Dependability and security Software dependability includes a range of characteristics including

reliability, security and safety. Dependable software should not cause
physical or economic damage in the event of system failure. Malicious users
should not be able to access or damage the system.

Efficiency Software should not make wasteful use of system resources such as memory
and processor cycles. Efficiency therefore includes responsiveness,
processing time, memory utilisation, etc.

Acceptability Software must be acceptable to the type of users for which it is designed.
This means that it must be understandable, usable and compatible with
other systems that they use.

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 Software process activities

• Software specification, where customers and engineers

define the software that is to be produced and the
restrictions on its operation.

• Software development, where the software is designed and

programmed.

• Software validation, where the software is checked to

ensure that it is what the customer requires.

• Software evolution, where the software is modified to

reflect changing customer and market requirements.

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 General issues that affect most software

• Heterogeneity
– Increasingly, systems are required to operate as distributed systems
across networks that include different types of computer and
mobile devices.
• Business and social change
– Business and society are changing incredibly quickly as emerging
economies develop and new technologies become available. They
need to be able to change their existing software and to rapidly
develop new software.
• Security and trust
– As software is intertwined with all aspects of our lives, it is essential
that we can trust that software.

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 Software engineering diversity ####02

• There are many different types of software

system and there is no universal set of software
techniques that is applicable to all of these.

• The software engineering methods and tools

used depend on the type of application being
developed, the requirements of the customer
and the background of the development team.

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 Application types

• Stand-alone applications
– These are application systems that run on a local computer, such as a
PC. They include all necessary functionality and do not need to be
connected to a network.
• Interactive transaction-based applications
– Applications that execute on a remote computer and are accessed by
users from their own PCs or terminals. These include web
applications such as e-commerce applications.
• Embedded control systems
– These are software control systems that control and manage
hardware devices.Numerically, there are probably more embedded
systems than any other type of system.

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 Application types

• Batch processing systems

– These are business systems that are designed to process data in large
batches. They process large numbers of individual inputs to create
corresponding outputs.
• Entertainment systems
– These are systems that are primarily for personal use and which are
intended to entertain the user.
• Systems for modelling and simulation
– These are systems that are developed by scientists and engineers to
model physical processes or situations, which include many,
separate, interacting objects.

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 Application types

• Data collection systems

– These are systems that collect data from their environment using
a set of sensors and send that data to other systems for
processing.
• Systems of systems
– These are systems that are composed of a number of other
software systems.

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E-Commerce

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Embedded control systems

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Batch processing systems

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Entertainment systems

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Systems for modelling and simulation

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 Software Engineering: The Fundamental Principles

• Some fundamental principles apply to all types of software system,

irrespective of the development techniques used:

– Systems should be developed using a managed and understood

development process. Of course, different processes are used for
different types of software.
– Dependability and performance are important for all types of system.
– Understanding and managing the software specification and
requirements (what the software should do) are important.
– Where appropriate, you should reuse software that has already been
developed rather than write new software.

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 Software engineering and the web
• The Web is now a platform for running application and organizations
are increasingly developing web-based systems rather than local
systems.

• Web services allow application functionality to be accessed over the web.

• Cloud computing is an approach to the provision of computer services

where applications run remotely on the ‘cloud’.
Instead of installing a suite of software for each computer, you'd only
have to load one application. That application would allow workers to log into
a Web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need for his
or her job. Remote machines owned by another company would run
everything from e-mail to word processing to complex data analysis programs.
It's called cloud computing.

– Users do not buy software, pay according to use.

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Cloud Computing

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 Key points
• Software engineering is an engineering discipline that is concerned with
all aspects of software production.

• Essential software product attributes are maintainability, dependability

and security, efficiency and acceptability.

• The high-level activities of specification, development, validation and

evolution are part of all software processes.

• The fundamental notions of software engineering are universally

applicable to all types of system development.

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 Key points

• There are many different types of system and each requires

appropriate software engineering tools and techniques for their
development.

• The fundamental ideas of software engineering are applicable to all

types of software system.

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 Software engineering Ethics

• Software engineering involves wider responsibilities than

simply the application of technical skills.

• Software engineers must behave in an honest and ethically

responsible way if they are to be respected as professionals.

• Ethical behaviour is more than simply upholding the law but

involves following a set of principles that are morally correct.

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 Issues of professional responsibility

• Confidentiality
– Engineers should normally respect the confidentiality of
their employers or clients irrespective of whether or not
a formal confidentiality agreement has been signed.

• Competence
– Engineers should not misrepresent their level of
competence. They should not knowingly accept work
which is out with their competence.

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 Issues of professional responsibility

• Intellectual property rights

– Engineers should be aware of local laws governing the
use of intellectual property such as patents, copyright,
etc. They should be careful to ensure that the
intellectual property of employers and clients is
protected.
• Computer misuse
– Software engineers should not use their technical skills
to misuse other people’s computers. Computer misuse
ranges from relatively trivial (game playing on an
employer’s machine, say) to extremely serious
(dissemination of viruses).
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 Case studies

• A personal insulin pump

– An embedded system in an insulin pump used by
diabetics to maintain blood glucose control.

• A mental health case patient management system

– An information system used to maintain records of
people receiving care for mental health problems.

• A wilderness weather station

– A data collection system that collects data about weather
conditions in remote areas.
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 Insulin pump control system

• Collects data from a blood sugar sensor and calculates the

amount of insulin required to be injected.
• Calculation based on the rate of change of blood sugar
levels.
• Sends signals to a micro-pump to deliver the correct dose
of insulin.
• Safety-critical system as low blood sugars can lead to brain
malfunctioning, coma and death; high-blood sugar levels
have long-term consequences such as eye and kidney
damage.

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Insulin pump hardware architecture

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Activity model of the insulin pump

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 Essential high-level requirements

• The system shall be available to deliver insulin when

required.

• The system shall perform reliably and deliver the correct

amount of insulin to counteract the current level of blood
sugar.

• The system must therefore be designed and implemented

to ensure that the system always meets these
requirements.

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 A patient information system for mental health care

• A patient information system to support mental health care is a

medical information system that maintains information about
patients suffering from mental health problems and the
treatments that they have received.

• Most mental health patients do not require dedicated hospital

treatment but need to attend specialist clinics regularly where
they can meet a doctor who has detailed knowledge of their
problems.

• To make it easier for patients to attend, these clinics are not just
run in hospitals. They may also be held in local medical practices
or community centres.
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 MHC-PMS

• The MHC-PMS (Mental Health Care-Patient Management

System) is an information system that is intended for use in
clinics.

• It makes use of a centralized database of patient information but

has also been designed to run on a PC, so that it may be accessed
and used from sites that do not have secure network
connectivity.

• When the local systems have secure network access, they use
patient information in the database but they can download and
use local copies of patient records when they are disconnected.

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 MHC-PMS goals

• To generate management information that allows health

service managers to assess performance against local and
government targets.

• To provide medical staff with timely information to support

the treatment of patients.

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The organization of the MHC-PMS

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 MHC-PMS key features

• Individual care management

– Clinicians can create records for patients, edit the information in the system,
view patient history, etc. The system supports data summaries so that
doctors can quickly learn about the key problems and treatments that have
been prescribed.

• Patient monitoring
– The system monitors the records of patients that are involved in treatment
and issues warnings if possible problems are detected.

• Administrative reporting
– The system generates monthly management reports showing the number of
patients treated at each clinic, the number of patients who have entered and
left the care system, number of patients sectioned, the drugs prescribed and
their costs, etc.

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 MHC-PMS concerns

• Privacy
– It is essential that patient information is confidential and is never
disclosed to anyone apart from authorised medical staff and the
patient themselves.

• Safety
– Some mental illnesses cause patients to become suicidal or a
danger to other people. Wherever possible, the system should
warn medical staff about potentially suicidal or dangerous patients.
– The system must be available when needed otherwise safety may
be compromised and it may be impossible to prescribe the correct
medication to patients.

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 Wilderness weather station

• The government of a country with large areas of wilderness decides to

deploy several hundred weather stations in remote areas.

• Weather stations collect data from a set of instruments that measure

temperature and pressure, sunshine, rainfall, wind speed and wind
direction.

– The weather station includes a number of instruments that

measure weather parameters such as the wind speed and
direction, the ground and air temperatures, the barometric
pressure and the rainfall over a 24-hour period. Each of these
instruments is controlled by a software system that takes
parameter readings periodically and manages the data collected
from the instruments.

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The weather station’s environment

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 Weather information system

• The weather station system

– This is responsible for collecting weather data, carrying out some
initial data processing and transmitting it to the data management
system.

• The data management and archiving system

– This system collects the data from all of the wilderness weather
stations, carries out data processing and analysis and archives the
data.

• The station maintenance system

– This system can communicate by satellite with all wilderness weather
stations to monitor the health of these systems and provide reports of
problems.
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A digital learning environment for schools

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 Additional software functionality###03

• Monitor the instruments, power and communication hardware and

report faults to the management system.

• Manage the system power, ensuring that batteries are charged

whenever the environmental conditions permit but also that
generators are shut down in potentially damaging weather conditions,
such as high wind.

• Support dynamic reconfiguration where parts of the software are

replaced with new versions and where backup instruments are
switched into the system in the event of system failure.

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 Generic View of Process

• During the time of developing we have to go through a series of

predictable steps that helps:

– Timely Delivery
– High quality Result

The steps we follow is called Process.

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 Layered Technology of Software Engineering

• For establish the sound engineering principles we have to ensure the

layers of S/W engineering:

Tools
Method

Process

Quality Focus

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 Layers of Software Engineering

Quality Focus
At first ensure the professional quality

Process
Enable timely delivery through framework and work products(models,
docs, report etc.)
Ensure technical method
Ensure the model and change is properly managed

Method
Define “how to” ’s and define broad array of tusks
Include communication, analysis, designing, program construction, testing
and support.

Tools
Provide support for the process and method.

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Software Process Framework
Activity

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 Framework Process

• Communication
• Planning
• Modeling
• Construction
• Deployment

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 Umbrella Activities

• S/w project tracking and control

• Risk management
• S/W quality assurance
• Formal technical review
• Measurement
• S/W configuration management
• Reusability management
• Work product preparation and production

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• Umbrella activities
Typical umbrella activities are:

1. Software project tracking and controlIn this activity, the developing team accesses
project plan and compares it with the predefined schedule.
If these project plans do not match with the predefined schedule, then the required
actions are taken to maintain the schedule.
2. Risk managementRisk is an event that may or may not occur.
If the event occurs, then it causes some unwanted outcome. Hence, proper risk
management is required.
3. Software Quality Assurance (SQA)SQA is the planned and systematic pattern of
activities which are required to give a guarantee of software quality.
For example, during the software development meetings are conducted at every stage of
development to find out the defects and suggest improvements to produce good quality
software.

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4. Formal Technical Reviews (FTR)FTR is a meeting conducted by the technical
staff.
The motive of the meeting is to detect quality problems and suggest
improvements.
The technical person focuses on the quality of the software from the customer
point of view.
5. MeasurementMeasurement consists of the effort required to measure the
software.
The software cannot be measured directly. It is measured by direct and indirect
measures.
Direct measures like cost, lines of code, size of software etc.
Indirect measures such as quality of software which is measured by some other
factor. Hence, it is an indirect measure of software.
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6. Software Configuration Management (SCM)It manages the effect of change
throughout the software process.
7. Reusability managementIt defines the criteria for reuse the product.
The quality of software is good when the components of the software are
developed for certain application and are useful for developing other
applications.
8. Work product preparation and productionIt consists of the activities that
are needed to create the documents, forms, lists, logs and user manuals for
developing a software.

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 Essence of Software Engineering Practice

1. Understand the problem (communication and analysis)

2. Plan a solution (modelling and software design)
3. Carry out the plan (code generation)
4. Examine the result for accuracy (testing and quality assurance)

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 General principles

1. The reason it all exists

2. KISS!
3. Maintain the vision
4. Be open to the future
5. Plan ahead for reuse
6. Think!

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 Key points

• Software engineers have responsibilities to the engineering profession and

society. They should not simply be concerned with technical issues.

• Professional societies publish codes of conduct which set out the standards of
behaviour expected of their members.

• Process Framework Activities

• Three case studies are used in the book:

– An embedded insulin pump control system
– A system for mental health care patient management
– A wilderness weather station

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