Software Requirements Evolution

February 16, 2013 Leave a comment


Software Requirements are evolving to keep up with users’ demanding appetite for applications. Simple “The system shall” statements have grown into User Stories and Storyboards. It used to be that talking about the GUI was verboten when gathering requirements. We software practitioners knew how to use the magic of creating software and the lowly users just needed to tell us what they needed and we would pull the software solution out of our proverbial hat. Not so anymore. Practically everyone has a smart phone or smart device (even my 3 year old) and the word “app” is universal thanks to the iPhone. Can I really gather requirements from my 3 year old for her new drawing app using Use Cases? Obviously no. Granted,the use cases may be used by the software developers but my 3 year old can’t even read for Christ’s sake.

Most users now know if they want a mobile app, web app, or desktop app. They know the differences and strengths of using these from years of experience. That’s why I think a more agile way of gathering requirements where quick prototypes and storyboards are used to gather feedback are meeting users’ requirements much better. If it’s a web app, well you have obviously constrained the application down to what HTML, JavaScript, CSS, etc. can do. So why not make a quick prototype of that? If they want an iPhone app, well there’s a pretty set style of doing that set by Apple. Obviously, we software professionals still have a part to play by asking, “Are you sure you won’t want to eventually have an app on the Android too?”. This leads to conversations about different architectures, technologies, and the cost/benefit analyses of each. But older ways of doing Software Requirements are becoming decreasingly beneficial with the changing “tech savvy” of users.

Please don’t get me wrong, there are still places to use Use Cases for certain kinds of projects. They are a tool in any good Software Requirements professional’s toolbox. But newer tools are coming out that need to be considered much more to keep up with software professionals’ ever changing user base.

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A son is born!

February 4, 2013 1 Comment


Wanted to post to my blog that my family just had our third child, a son finally! ;) John Dunn Woody was born on February 1st, 2013.

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Where does the acronym ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) come from?

July 18, 2011 Leave a comment


I became interested today in where this ALM term comes from.  It is involved a lot with what Microsoft does on the Team Foundation Server (TFS) front and frankly, I’ve thought it to be just another marketing term for Software Engineering.  BUT, I wanted to investigate and dig deeper….

The best I can tell, the acronym ALM comes from PLM or Product Lifecycle Management.  The Wikipedia article on PLM has a good history of the term and how it came to be used at Chrysler in the mid 1980′s.  They basically started centralizing all designs, documentation, etc. of the Jeep Cherokee into one database to manage its creation.  Sounds a lot like ALM to me today.

It also makes sense that the term would come from manufacturing.  This article from 2002 talks about the transition in the manufacturing industry from Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools to a more holistic approach of PLM.  There was also a boon of Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools in the 1980′s.  CAD leads to PLM.  CASE leads to ALM.  We both went from individual tools that did design, requirements, etc. and integrated them into one tool or system.  That seems to be the evolution.

The borrowing from manufacturing also makes sense as so much of Software Process comes from that industry. Kanban, Lean, CMMI, and on and on.  Deming, one of the greats in manufacturing process, is cited often in software process literature.

So there it is, ALM comes from PLM which all originated in the auto industry with the Jeep Cherokee.  Who would of thunk it? :)

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Google Chrome Extension to switch between multiple monitors

January 10, 2011 Leave a comment


So I have dual monitors and I love my UltraMon tool.  It puts a little button on every window that immediately puts the window in the other monitor when clicked.   Every window, except Chrome!!!  I was hopeful that I could write an extension to do this, but unfortunately I don’t think it is currently possible.  The windows api looked to be the best bet, but it came back with the minimized window width and height instead of the maximized window’s width and height.  This seems to be a bug to me.

But even if they could do that right, it still doesn’t seem possible.  Chrome’s extension api is very young and immature right now, which I can see from both the api and currently available extensions.  I hope it matures quickly!!!

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This is how you do Network Security

November 17, 2010 Leave a comment


At a client and was trying to get high-speed internet. Did the old “take an ethernet cable from some computer and plug it into mine” routine. Couldn’t access the internet or their network. Good for them.

But the best part is SIX MINUTES LATER, some guy comes in and asks me what I’m doing here. Says he got an alert to his mobile phone that someone on the level tried to gain access to the network. If it was after-hours (thankfully it wasn’t); security would have come. Also, no USB Data sticks work on any of the computers.

I asked him what software they use for this and he said, “I can’t say”.

Very well done sir, very well done.

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Is Software Art?

March 13, 2010 1 Comment


I was reading Architecture by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson tonight to see if and where the parallels between real Architecture and Software Architecture are.  I was struck by the amount of art that is imbued and intertwined with Architecture.  As he says:

So two workmen will do the same thing, but will do it in a different way.  The work of both may be useful and serviceable, but that of one will show thought and imagination, suggestive of further progress; that of the other will be correct, but dull and commonplace, leading no further.  The one man is an artist, the other a mere mechanic.

Am I a mechanic or an artist?  I consider myself a Software Architect, but that would mean I’m an artist.

Where is the art in software?

Where is the beauty in software?

Is it from the graphic designers? NO.  They are like interior decorators in my opinion.  They make our buildings look nice to the inhabitant.  We make the structure.

I can tell you where the beauty in software is:

  • TCP/IP
  • The World Wide Web

We have something called elegance in software.  There are elegant solutions and brutish solutions.  I propose the elegant ones are where our craft becomes architecture.  Something sustainable, something that will stand the test of time.  Something to be copied.  That is what Software Architecture is.

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Software Education in the 21st century

March 4, 2010 3 Comments


It is unfortunate that today’s software practitioners are put at such a disadvantage by spending four years of their lives studying things that are totally irrelevant to creating software (i.e. a BS in Computer Science).  I have yet to use any calculus in my career.  Discrete Mathematics was also a total waste of time.  P = NP is nifty, but not really relevant to my profession.

That is why there is such a brazen turn against the term software engineering.  This is where things such as the Agile Manifesto come from.  It is the pent-up frustration of software developers finally saying “ENOUGH”!  I want to get things done, I don’t feel like studying so much theory that I forget why I started Computer Science in the first place.

This era in time is analoguous to the late 1800′s in which established universities such as Harvard, et. al. were still teaching Latin and other useless subjects.  What came out of this was MIT, all the A & M schools, Virginia Tech, Texas Tech, etc.  Universities that actually prepared there graduates for the real world.

The big universities are so large that they cannot be turned quickly and today’s software profession changes every month.  A new model of education needs to be developed lest these big university programs are replaced.  There is a vacuum right now for certifying and educating software developers.  Either universities need to change, and change quickly, or the industry will find another way.   But time is running out….

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Posting code in WordPress

February 23, 2010 1 Comment


I just found this out… and I think it’s awesome! I always want to write about code in html, but formatting is a drag.
Now with this, I don’t have to format any more! Yay!!

Here’s some html:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">

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What is Software Engineering’s Greatest Achievement?

November 26, 2009 Leave a comment


As I was trying to define engineering tonight; I was struck by this part in the Wikipedia article on the subject:

The Pharos of Alexandria, the pyramids in Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Acropolis and the Parthenon in Greece, the Roman aqueducts, Via Appia and the Colosseum, Teotihuacán and the cities and pyramids of the Mayan, Inca and Aztec Empires, the Great Wall of China, the Buddhist Stupa and Yoda Canal in Sri Lanka, among many others, stand as a testament to the ingenuity and skill of the ancient civil and military engineers.

What is software engineering’s great achievement that will be looked upon 500-1000 years from now with awe?  At first I thought the Internet, but that is really not all software engineering.  It’s mostly electrical and network engineering.  But, the World Wide Web is software!  And it runs on the Internet.  A little research brought up the initial proposal for the World Wide Web written by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and R. Cailliau.  It almost gives me goose bumps to read it.  He does a requirements analysis of the WWW for crying out loud.  His description of the architecture takes about five sentences!  But the best part, at least in terms of showing that the WWW is a result of software engineering, is that he asks for 4 software engineers and a programmer in his proposal!!!  Take a look at history in the making….

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Is “Software Engineering” really “Software Craftmanship”?

October 30, 2009 Leave a comment


Mary Shaw of CMU just wrote a follow-up to her seminal article in 1991 about software engineering developing along the paths of other mature fields of engineering, such as civil engineering.  One of the stages is craftmanship and she tends to think we are there.  What do you think?

Filed under Musings, Software Engineering

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