Approaches to software development
This free course, Approaches to software development, presents an engineering approach to the development of software systems – a software engineering approach. The course pays particular attention to issues of software quality, in terms of both product (what is built) and process (how we build it). First published on Mon, 18 Jun 2018 as Author(s):
3.2 Sub-state forms of nationalism The advancement of democracy in contemporary Western nation-states and the intensification of globalisation processes have encouraged the re-emergence of nationalist movements representing oppressed or silenced nations that demand the right to self-determination. In the case of ethnic groups formed by people of immigrant origin, democracy has provided them with the tools to pursue the right to develop and practice their indigenous culture and language alongside those of the host country. One
3.3 Thermal stresses When the temperature of an object increases (say, by ΔT) it expands. According to the linear model of thermal expansion the length increase is described by What if there is a temperature change, but some constraint prevents the proper thermal size
5.2.2 Owning problems Problem ownership is a tricky issue. It's also an issue that good leaders get right instinctively, and poor leaders get wrong consistently. The point is that there are two distinct classes of problems faced by leaders. The first consists of problems which are owned by the group members. Examples include when some additional resources are required, when instructions are not understood or when members complain that something is wrong. Under these conditions the leader's function is to provide p
4.2 Project life cycles Earlier I said that a project is: 'a unique venture with a beginning and an end' (Boddy and Buchanan, 1992, p. 8). But it must have a middle, too. We say that a project has a 'life cycle'. This is based on an analogy with living things which are born, live for a period of time, doing things like consuming food and water, breathing, moving, etc., and then finally end (die). There is much discussion about whether there is only one 'true' model of a project life cycle or many, and whether any of
3.2.4 Functional and team roles When individuals are being selected for membership of a team, the choice is usually made on the basis of task-related issues, such as their prior skills, knowledge, and experience. However, team effectiveness is equally dependent on the personal qualities and attributes of individual team members. It is just as important to select for these as well. When we work with other people in a group or team we each bring two types of role to that relationship. The first, and more obvious, is our
3.2.2 Group size Another significant feature of a work group is its size. To be effective it should be neither too large nor too small. As membership increases there is a trade-off between increased collective expertise and decreased involvement and satisfaction of individual members. A very small group may not have the range of skills it requires to function well. The optimum size depends partly on the group's purpose. A group for information sharing or decision making may need to be larger than one for prob
5.5 Other forms of diabetes By far the three most common types of diabetes are Type 1, Type 2 and gestational. There are other forms of diabetes but we will not be covering them in any more detail. These are forms due to: disease of the pancreas (pancreatitis) an excess of hormones that increase blood glucose levels, e.g. excess growth hormone drugs, for example, steroid therapy, which tend to oppose the action of insulin abnorm
2.3.6 'Horses for courses' Different team structures have different advantages and disadvantages. A structure may fit a particular task in one organisation better than another. On the next page, Table 1 sets out the strengths and weaknesses of different team structures. 2.3.5 Mixed structures Teams often have mixed structures: some members may be employed to work full time on the project and be fully responsible to the project manager. Project managers themselves are usually employed full time. others may work part time, and be responsible to the project manager only during their time on the project. For example, internal staff may well work on several projects at the same time. Alternatively, an external consultant working o Appendix 2 Acronyms 4.3 Optical networking DWDM improves the utilisation of optical fibre for point-to-point links, but a further step in exploiting the potential of optical fibre comes from optical networking in which routeing or switching is done optically. Optical networking is in its infancy, but the concept of the optical layer based upon wavelength channels is emerging. The optical layer effectively sits below the SDH layer in the network, and provides wavelength channels from one location to another. An analogy can 4.2 Fibre in the core network All new trunk transmission – that is, transmission between telephone exchanges – is now over optical fibre. Mostly it uses either PDH or SDH links. Year by year the data rates have increased, so that at the time of writing STM-64 products are available commercially. 3.3 Optical amplifiers Figure 22 shows in outline one possible structure for an Erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA). 2.4.1 Multimode distortion With multimode fibre, the main cause of pulses spreading is the multiple paths that signals can traverse as they travel along the fibre. This phenomenon of multimode distortion is illustrated in Figure 5. 7 Summary This course presents an understanding of ‘ethics’ as something related with ‘good’ and ‘bad’. There are other derivative words like ‘optimal’ that might also be used, and there are parochial words which are related to particular communities. When we talk about ethical things, we are liable to confront cultural differences that are reflected in differences in vocabulary. But there are other kinds of differences too. Things have different properties; for example, ‘appearance†5.7 The story so far In Act 1 of Landscape with Weapon, Dan, the dentist, has been disturbed by the defence project that his brother is working on. Dan, however, is a fairly mercenary individual, so he feels that having had the idea, Ned should aim for a good return. The company is keen to exploit Ned's work, but Ned has resisted handing over the IP for his invention because he wants to control who gets access to the weapon system that his work has enabled. In this Act Ned says weapons are empirical, 5.3 Ethics and ethos: ‘does mum know?’ In Act 1 we are presented with a fairly naïve Ned, who initially believes himself to be in control. We discover he is very proud of his intellectual achievements and less concerned with money. He explains his inventions and, when he does so, he finds analogies that highlight the aesthetics of what he is designing. At a crucial point in the conversation, his brother Dan asks: ‘does mum know?’ This is a really significant point in the play because it draws in another relationship and, as I 5.1 Introduction In this section I want to introduce Joe Penhall's play Landscape with Weapon. Having read the play several times, I must stress that it is a text that is particularly rich in ethical issues. These issues, however, are presented in a very down-to-earth way, in a very lively dialogue. I think the lesson from this is that you do not need to be in any kind of ‘formal’ situation to engage with ethics. Everyday conversation is littered with references and arguments about ethical matters, 4.7 The story so far This section looked at the play Last Call. The play is very rich in ethical issues, and one of the most interesting points that are made is that, whilst there are many ‘big’ ethical questions worthy of discussion and investigation, it seems to be in the everyday, routine conversations and dealings of people that ethical questions get to be asked and answered, even if this is not clearly recognised. A major ethical issue tackled in the play is loyalty: giving preference in som
Table 1 Strengths and weaknesses of different structures for project teams
APC angle-polished convex (connector) ASE amplified spontaneous emission ASK amplitude shift keying cw continuous wave DSF dispersion-shifted fibre DWDM dense wavelength division multiplexing EDFA erbium-doped fibr
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