Workflows

Analysis seeks to describe what is (or should be) going on in the topic of interest.

In analysis, we consider the “world” surrounding the TOI and try to learn how the TOI must interact with that world.

The focus of analysis is external, and there is an emphasis on interfaces.
Design considers the questions of how our TOI will accomplish the goals established in the most recent round of analysis.

The focus of design spans the external and the internal.
Implementation is the rendering of the design decisions into a final form.

“Final” in this case refers only to this round of work on the TOI.
Validation consists of any activities we employ to determine whether the implementation is acceptable and whether it is time to move on to a different TOI.

Validation can take many forms, including testing, reviews with other team members or with the domain experts, and checks for completeness and internal consistency.

2 Iterative Application of the Workflows

At the low level, a continuous cycle through the four workflows
The TOI changes, but the daily activities represented by the 4 workflows remains the same.

3 Examples

3.1 Example: Class Discovery

Topic of interest:

What are the basic characteristics of a book in the library?

Analysis:

Many of the characteristics are quite obvious. Books have titles, authors (possibly multiple), publishers, ISBN numbers, etc.
However, someone looking through the library’s card catalog notes that many of the books are labeled “copy 1”, “copy 2”, etc.
- Based on this observation, the team got into a discussion of whether the term “book” actually refers to the thing on the shelf or to something more abstract. Is “War and Peace” a book even if the library does not own a copy? If the library has two copies, what do we call the common “thing” that these are copies of?

Design:

The team proposed that the term “book” be used for the abstract idea of the thing that an author writes.
The term “copy” or perhaps “bookcopy” will be used for a physical copy of a book.
Books have all the attributes previously described.
Book copies have attributes of location, copy number, and, of course, the book that they are a copy of.

Implementation:

The team draws a simple UML class relationship diagram (these diagrams are introduced in a later lesson) describing the Book, BookCopy, and Author classes:

Validation:

The team discusses with a librarian their decision about proper terminology and about the key attributes.
The librarian suggests that the distinction between “book” and “copy of a book” is technically correct, but often muddled in common use.
The librarian notes that books have other important attributes, including date of publication and subject area. Finally, the librarian suggests that the focus on books may be too narrow, as the library actually houses many different kinds of publications.

3.2 Example: ADT Interface

Topic of interest: Developing the ADT interface for a Book.

Analysis:

The developer looks at the previous diagram and notes that each book can have multiple authors, so the interface must provide some way to access an unknown number of author objects.

Design:

The developer suggests using an iterator for this purpose, knowing this to be a common idiom in C++ for accessing an unknown number of “contained” objects.

Implementation:

The developer adds the lines

typedef ... AuthorIterator;

and

AuthorIterator begin() const;
AuthorIterator end() const;

to the class declaration for Book.

Validation:

The developer looks at some of the proposed algorithms that will work with books and authors, checking to see if those algorithms could be coded using an iterator style.

Satisfied that it will do so, the developer distributes the new class declaration to the rest of the development team for their approval.

3.3 Example: Test Design

Topic of interest:

Developing a unit test for the Book ADT

Analysis:

The tester reviews the required attributes and behaviors of the book class and concludes that it is reasonably self-contained and should be testable using a self-checking test.

Design:

The tester examines the Book interface and divides the member functions into

mutators: functions that change the state of the book
accessors: functions that examine/retrieve the state of the Book

The tester writes a test driver that

applies each mutator to a starting Book value, and
- applies each accessor to the changed book and prints the return value

Implementation:

The tester codes the unit test driver, using the team’s chosen test framework.

Validation:

The tester checks the unit test code against the Book interface to verify that each Book function is being invoked during the test.

3.4 Example: ADT Implementation

Topic of interest:

Implementing the Book ADT

Analysis:

The programmer reviews the required attributes and behaviors of the book class and concludes that it is pretty straightforward, except for the question of how to store the authors.
Reviewing the various application algorithms that manipulate books and authors, the programmer notes that adding and removing authors is fairly uncommon.
- The programmer also notes that there are no instances of needing “random access” to the authors. The only algorithms that access the authors will process each author in turn.

Design:

The programmer decides that the std::list would provide appropriate performance and would make for a simple implementation as well.

Implementation:

The programmer writes the std list into the private section of the class declaration and codes the accompanying function bodies.

Validation:

The programmer runs the previously developed unit test on the new Book implementation.

3.5 Example: Training Manuals

Topic of interest:

Preparing training documents for the new automated check-in system

Analysis:

The author reviews the (use-cases) scenarios for interactions between library staff, patrons, and the other library objects relating to check-in (return) of copies.
The author makes a list of those that will require explanation to the library staff.

Design:

The author decides which scenario variants and interactions are important and common enough to be needed in the initial training, and which can be relegated to reference documentation.

The common and important items are arranged into related groups, and the author creates an overall outline that encompasses those groups as chapters/sections of the training manual.

Implementation:

The author writes the relevant chapters and sections.

Validation:

The sections are submitted to one of the system designers to be checked for accuracy and to one or more domain experts to be checked for understandability.