Test your basic knowledge |

Software Engineering Principles And Concepts

Instructions:

Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
Match each statement with the correct term.
Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.

1. How to avoid those defects
Define failures intensity - allocate reliability among components
Try to achieve products with 3.4 defects per million opportunities - Define customer requirements - meet customer needs - know what the customer wants - Measure the process - collecting defect metrics - Analyze to determine causes - Improve. Eliminat
Establish liaison between groups - better processes and better documentation - do checklists - automated checking - work product templates and reviews - Training and staff- ins - Transcription - Tools for automated checking
Direct manipulations: Video games - Menu - Form Filling - Command languages - Natural languages

2. Interaction styles
Describe common management techniques or organizational structures. A way to capture best practices within an organization.
It help individuals to perform better - it helps to improve processes.
The probability that a system or capability functions without failure for a specified time or number of natural units in a specified environment
Direct manipulations: Video games - Menu - Form Filling - Command languages - Natural languages

3. IPT
Whatever uses the service - it can be an application or another service
Reviews - Test - Measurements - Analysis/Reporting - Process definition/Standards
An approach to construct and prove that a program is correct. Apply mathematical and logical techniques to analyze a program. Apply to system specification and system implementations. Not used for validation but are tied to verification.
Integrated Product Team is a group of people that has complementary skills and expertise - fully empowered to represent stakeohlders - to make the appropriate decisions. A team of people that comes from different backgrounds - with different skillset

4. Root cause analysis...
Is group reasoning process applied to defect information to develop organizational understanding of the causes of a particular class of defects. A group of people analyze a group of defects to try to understand the causes of these defect.
User analysis: undestand what users want to do with the system. Create scenarios - use cases - put the user in different situations - interview and talk to people - observe - Prorotyping: paper or executable prototypes - Evaluation - Using prototypes
Product revision: Maintainability - testability - re- usability - Product transition: Move the product into a domain. Portability - Revisability - interoperability - Product operation: Correctness - reliability - usability - performance
Quantitative measures of the defree to which some component possess a given attribute. Combination of measures.

5. Advantages and disadvantages of formal methods
Who are the customers - how are they gonna use the product - undestand the product - define possible failures - understand customer needs
Goal: Well defined goalm a purpose - why are you doing this - Question: Based on the goal formulate questions to achieve the goal - Metric: Define metrics to answer the questions.
They eliminate contradiction - ambiguities - vagueness and incompleteness from normal language descriptions. The disasvantages are the time/effort needed - the complexity - there are interface issues - they are cumbersome.
Identify alternatives

6. Characteristics of good metrics
They have to objective - unambiguous and tailored to meet the needs
Define failures intensity - allocate reliability among components
They eliminate contradiction - ambiguities - vagueness and incompleteness from normal language descriptions. The disasvantages are the time/effort needed - the complexity - there are interface issues - they are cumbersome.
Intelectual property - use software without credit - develop tools that help people to violate intelectual property - Privacy: credit - health - personal information - Confidentiality - Quality of work

7. Some examples of formal methods implementations
Total value score - Sum of weights x values
Integrated Product and Process development is a systematic approach that achieves a timely collaboration of relevant stakeholders throughout the product life cycle to better satisfy customer needs. It involves the use of cross functional teams - inte
Algebraic Specification: Using methods from algebra - OBJ - Low level specifications - Syntax = signature and Semantic part = axioms. Model oriented specification: The state of the system - operations over the states.
User analysis: undestand what users want to do with the system. Create scenarios - use cases - put the user in different situations - interview and talk to people - observe - Prorotyping: paper or executable prototypes - Evaluation - Using prototypes

8. Prepare tests
Whatever uses the service - it can be an application or another service
Total value score - Sum of weights x values
Generate test cases from operational profile - include low probability tests
Team members establish common goals and define roles - Team: develops strategy - defines a customize process - participates in producing the plan and everyone understands the role - negotiates with management on the plan and resources - members fo wo

9. Define operational profile
Strategies that software professionals use to solve recurring problems. Consist of a collection of general techniques - actions and tasks being use to solve recurring problems in an organization.
Lessons learned - have we achieved the desired features? - recommendations for future technologies insertions
Directive Approach: A leader makes the decision alone - Consultative Approach: A leader makes the decision with the advise from other people - Democratic Approach: Some key team members vote for the best decision - Consensus Approach: Everybody parti
Identify use cases - occurrence probability - Engineer Just Right reliability

10. PSP1
Evaluate the remaining alternatives against the desired objectives and set a score that will show how well this alternative satisfy our desired objectives
An approach to construct and prove that a program is correct. Apply mathematical and logical techniques to analyze a program. Apply to system specification and system implementations. Not used for validation but are tied to verification.
Is a group activity conducted at the end of a project cycle - where team members share knowledge gathered during the development of a project. They basically identify what went wrong - what worked well - how can they improve what they are doing - mak
How do we size - resource and schedule plans - How do we estimate - What is the estimation process?

11. Steps to apply DARS #8. Calculate a value score
Test alternatives against required objectives - Make sure the alternatives identified meet the required objectives - otherwise disregard them
From the common root causes identified in the previous meeting - the team select the ones that they will be addressing. The root causes selected will be usually the ones that cause a lot of the defects.
Describe common management techniques or organizational structures. A way to capture best practices within an organization.
For each of the alternatives calculate the weight of the alternatives x value of the criteria

12. Other approaches to make decisions exist besides DARS
Total value score - Sum of weights x values
Strategies that software professionals use to solve recurring problems. Consist of a collection of general techniques - actions and tasks being use to solve recurring problems in an organization.
Diagnosing: Characterize current state versus desired state - Recommended actions for the technology insertion Identify potential barriers: legacy code - processes - standards - contracts - Establishing:What are the different actions - develop a pla
Directive Approach: A leader makes the decision alone - Consultative Approach: A leader makes the decision with the advise from other people - Democratic Approach: Some key team members vote for the best decision - Consensus Approach: Everybody parti

13. Benefits of SOA
Reuse cycle time - costs - Interoperability - Scalabilty - Flexibility/Maintainability
Integrated Product and Process development is a systematic approach that achieves a timely collaboration of relevant stakeholders throughout the product life cycle to better satisfy customer needs. It involves the use of cross functional teams - inte
User analysis: undestand what users want to do with the system. Create scenarios - use cases - put the user in different situations - interview and talk to people - observe - Prorotyping: paper or executable prototypes - Evaluation - Using prototypes
Requirements - Design - Test and Maintenance

14. Steps to apply DARS #4. Value the desired objectives
Rank desired objectives in a 1 to 10 scale
Reviews - Test - Measurements - Analysis/Reporting - Process definition/Standards
A mediator - it connects the consumer with the service provider
Its targeted for organizational capabilities - Organizations depend on teams to be mature and capable.

15. Steps to perform a root cause analysis #5
Is a group activity conducted at the end of a project cycle - where team members share knowledge gathered during the development of a project. They basically identify what went wrong - what worked well - how can they improve what they are doing - mak
Task process patterns: Detailed steps to perform a task - Stage process patterns: Depict steps in a project stage - Phase process patterns: Depicts the interactions between stages process paterns
Implement solutions and evaluate the results
Describe common management techniques or organizational structures. A way to capture best practices within an organization.

16. Activites in the user design process
User analysis: undestand what users want to do with the system. Create scenarios - use cases - put the user in different situations - interview and talk to people - observe - Prorotyping: paper or executable prototypes - Evaluation - Using prototypes
Similar to the documentation of a design pattern. Specify a Name - Intent (Intended use of pattern) - Type (Task - Stage - Phase) - Initial Contact (Situation where the pattern solution applies to) - Solution (How the pattern solve the intended probl
The individual establish a personal performance baseline - Recognize how you do your job - Document personal processing - Gather data on where do you spend your time - Gather data on the errors you make
The extent that specific attributes of interest to the user are satisfied. It is defined in terms of attributes that are determined by the users.

17. The McCall's triangle of quality
Goal: Well defined goalm a purpose - why are you doing this - Question: Based on the goal formulate questions to achieve the goal - Metric: Define metrics to answer the questions.
Product revision: Maintainability - testability - re- usability - Product transition: Move the product into a domain. Portability - Revisability - interoperability - Product operation: Correctness - reliability - usability - performance
Lessons learned - have we achieved the desired features? - recommendations for future technologies insertions
Quantitative measures of the defree to which some component possess a given attribute. Combination of measures.

18. Quality assurance disciplines
Directive Approach: A leader makes the decision alone - Consultative Approach: A leader makes the decision with the advise from other people - Democratic Approach: Some key team members vote for the best decision - Consensus Approach: Everybody parti
The individual establish a personal performance baseline - Recognize how you do your job - Document personal processing - Gather data on where do you spend your time - Gather data on the errors you make
The extent that specific attributes of interest to the user are satisfied. It is defined in terms of attributes that are determined by the users.
Reviews - Test - Measurements - Analysis/Reporting - Process definition/Standards

19. Where to apply formal methods
Requirements - Design - Test and Maintenance
Integrated Product Team is a group of people that has complementary skills and expertise - fully empowered to represent stakeohlders - to make the appropriate decisions. A team of people that comes from different backgrounds - with different skillset
Select the defects that will be analyse by the team and define the goals for the root cause analysis activities
Evaluate the remaining alternatives against the desired objectives and set a score that will show how well this alternative satisfy our desired objectives

20. Steps to apply DARS #1. Draft decision statement
Any flaw in the specification - design or implementation of a product.
An application function packaged as a reusable component for use in some process - typically a business or application process.
Define the decision we are trying to make - what do we want to accomplish and what questions we will ask
Reviews - Test - Measurements - Analysis/Reporting - Process definition/Standards

21. Steps to perform a root cause analysis #1
It is a semi formal language - partly mathematical. UML cannot describe constraints on model objects. Addresses invariants which are expressions holding true. Defines preconditions that must be true at the start of a method execution and post conditi
Select the defects that will be analyse by the team and define the goals for the root cause analysis activities
Establish how much time do we have to make de decision - what resources are available.
Define the decision we are trying to make - what do we want to accomplish and what questions we will ask

22. User interface design principles
User familiarity - User diversity - Consistency throughout the interface - Minimum surprise - Recoverability - User guidance
An approach to construct and prove that a program is correct. Apply mathematical and logical techniques to analyze a program. Apply to system specification and system implementations. Not used for validation but are tied to verification.
The one who implements the service - it can be a network addressable entity - it needs to be able to accept and execute requests from consumer - it needs to publish a service description in a service registry that contains the collection of service d
A registry or directory that provides a lookup so the consumer can browse the services

23. Defect
Any flaw in the specification - design or implementation of a product.
Formulation: Define proper metrics - Collection: Collect data on the metric - Analysis: Tools to look at data - charts - graphics - Interpretation: Gain insight - Feedback: Derive recommendations and take actions
Team hold a meeting to identify common root causes - common problems. Techniques such as Fishbone diagram are used in this phase to support the analysis.
Targeted for teams. The goal is to produce effective teams by selecting skilled teams or providing tools to improve their skills.

24. Service
Integrated Product Team is a group of people that has complementary skills and expertise - fully empowered to represent stakeohlders - to make the appropriate decisions. A team of people that comes from different backgrounds - with different skillset
An application function packaged as a reusable component for use in some process - typically a business or application process.
They eliminate contradiction - ambiguities - vagueness and incompleteness from normal language descriptions. The disasvantages are the time/effort needed - the complexity - there are interface issues - they are cumbersome.
Lessons learned - have we achieved the desired features? - recommendations for future technologies insertions

25. CMMI
Its targeted for organizational capabilities - Organizations depend on teams to be mature and capable.
The individual establish a personal performance baseline - Recognize how you do your job - Document personal processing - Gather data on where do you spend your time - Gather data on the errors you make
How do we size - resource and schedule plans - How do we estimate - What is the estimation process?
What kind of defects do I make in my own work - How can I make fewer mistakes - How can I identify more defects that I overlooked in the past

26. Steps to perform a root cause analysis #2
Make the decision
Process failure data - Tracking reliability growth - specify how fault tolerant architectures work - They rely on redundancy - They are able to recover by moving to a future state or restore to known safe state.
Reviews - Test - Measurements - Analysis/Reporting - Process definition/Standards
Team hold a meeting to identify common root causes - common problems. Techniques such as Fishbone diagram are used in this phase to support the analysis.

27. Software availability
They eliminate contradiction - ambiguities - vagueness and incompleteness from normal language descriptions. The disasvantages are the time/effort needed - the complexity - there are interface issues - they are cumbersome.
The probability at any given time that a system or capabilty performs satisfactory in a specified environment
Is a group activity conducted at the end of a project cycle - where team members share knowledge gathered during the development of a project. They basically identify what went wrong - what worked well - how can they improve what they are doing - mak
Any flaw in the specification - design or implementation of a product.

28. Ethic
Intelectual property - use software without credit - develop tools that help people to violate intelectual property - Privacy: credit - health - personal information - Confidentiality - Quality of work
Any flaw in the specification - design or implementation of a product.
Consider risks of selected alternatives
The discipline dealing with what is good and bad. Moral duty and obligation. The principles of conduct governing and individual or group

29. Learning phase of IDEAL model
Establish how much time do we have to make de decision - what resources are available.
Lessons learned - have we achieved the desired features? - recommendations for future technologies insertions
Establish liaison between groups - better processes and better documentation - do checklists - automated checking - work product templates and reviews - Training and staff- ins - Transcription - Tools for automated checking
Focus on customer needs - Reduce costs - Helps to make better decisions - Reduce time - Reduce risks

30. Middle phase of IDEAL model
Define the decision we are trying to make - what do we want to accomplish and what questions we will ask
It help individuals to perform better - it helps to improve processes.
Diagnosing: Characterize current state versus desired state - Recommended actions for the technology insertion Identify potential barriers: legacy code - processes - standards - contracts - Establishing:What are the different actions - develop a pla
Total value score - Sum of weights x values

31. Service locator
They have to objective - unambiguous and tailored to meet the needs
Rank desired objectives in a 1 to 10 scale
A registry or directory that provides a lookup so the consumer can browse the services
Direct manipulations: Video games - Menu - Form Filling - Command languages - Natural languages

32. Steps to perform a root cause analysis #4
Communicative failure - Missing or incomplete information - Oversight failure - Did not consider all the variables and left out important things - Education or lack of thereof - Lack of understanding - Typo - human error
Develop and evaluate proposed solutions to eliminte defect root causes
Who are the customers - how are they gonna use the product - undestand the product - define possible failures - understand customer needs
The one who implements the service - it can be a network addressable entity - it needs to be able to accept and execute requests from consumer - it needs to publish a service description in a service registry that contains the collection of service d

33. Define failures
Reviews - Test - Measurements - Analysis/Reporting - Process definition/Standards
Directive Approach: A leader makes the decision alone - Consultative Approach: A leader makes the decision with the advise from other people - Democratic Approach: Some key team members vote for the best decision - Consensus Approach: Everybody parti
Product revision: Maintainability - testability - re- usability - Product transition: Move the product into a domain. Portability - Revisability - interoperability - Product operation: Correctness - reliability - usability - performance
Define failures intensity - allocate reliability among components

34. Service broker
A mediator - it connects the consumer with the service provider
The approach to build distributed systems that deliver application functionality as services to end user applications or to build other services.
Focus on customer needs - Reduce costs - Helps to make better decisions - Reduce time - Reduce risks
Integrated Product and Process development is a systematic approach that achieves a timely collaboration of relevant stakeholders throughout the product life cycle to better satisfy customer needs. It involves the use of cross functional teams - inte

35. Organizational pattern
Requirements - Design - Test and Maintenance
Is a group activity conducted at the end of a project cycle - where team members share knowledge gathered during the development of a project. They basically identify what went wrong - what worked well - how can they improve what they are doing - mak
Describe common management techniques or organizational structures. A way to capture best practices within an organization.
The one who implements the service - it can be a network addressable entity - it needs to be able to accept and execute requests from consumer - it needs to publish a service description in a service registry that contains the collection of service d

36. Different categories of defects
Establish product and business goals - Assigning the roles of individuals within the team - Determine the development product strategy - Build top level plans - Develop quality plan - Conduct risk assesment - Team will prepare a management briefing -
A mediator - it connects the consumer with the service provider
Communicative failure - Missing or incomplete information - Oversight failure - Did not consider all the variables and left out important things - Education or lack of thereof - Lack of understanding - Typo - human error
Boundaries of services have to be explicit. Services are autonomous - standalone - do not have dependencies - Services share schema and contracts not classes and types. Platform neutral - Compatibility is policy based - policies define the contraints

37. Role of a software quality assurance group
A mediator - it connects the consumer with the service provider
How do we size - resource and schedule plans - How do we estimate - What is the estimation process?
The approach to build distributed systems that deliver application functionality as services to end user applications or to build other services.
To prepare a software quality assurance plan - Participate in the development of the project process descriptions and definitions - Review software activities to verify compliance with the processes - Work product audits to verify compliance with pro

38. Acting phase of IDEAL model
To prepare a software quality assurance plan - Participate in the development of the project process descriptions and definitions - Review software activities to verify compliance with the processes - Work product audits to verify compliance with pro
Do things in trial basis - pilot projects - collect information - analyze information - iterate
What kind of defects do I make in my own work - How can I make fewer mistakes - How can I identify more defects that I overlooked in the past
An application function packaged as a reusable component for use in some process - typically a business or application process.

39. Benefits of project retrospectives
Reuse cycle time - costs - Interoperability - Scalabilty - Flexibility/Maintainability
It help individuals to perform better - it helps to improve processes.
Define product - Define operational profile - Define failures - Prepare tests - Execute tests
Define the decision we are trying to make - what do we want to accomplish and what questions we will ask

40. Goals for root cause analysis...
Reuse cycle time - costs - Interoperability - Scalabilty - Flexibility/Maintainability
Task process patterns: Detailed steps to perform a task - Stage process patterns: Depict steps in a project stage - Phase process patterns: Depicts the interactions between stages process paterns
Reduce repair or re work cause - eliminate high priority problems and reduce error type
Targeted for individuals. Analyse how an individual is doing his job - identify where you are spending your time - what mistakes are you making and how to improve the way you do your work. What is your process? Where do you spend your time? How good

41. Service provider
Things that should no be doing - comes from lessons learned
The one who implements the service - it can be a network addressable entity - it needs to be able to accept and execute requests from consumer - it needs to publish a service description in a service registry that contains the collection of service d
Task process patterns: Detailed steps to perform a task - Stage process patterns: Depict steps in a project stage - Phase process patterns: Depicts the interactions between stages process paterns
Establish liaison between groups - better processes and better documentation - do checklists - automated checking - work product templates and reviews - Training and staff- ins - Transcription - Tools for automated checking

42. Steps to apply DARS #2. Establish decision objectives
Establish how much time do we have to make de decision - what resources are available.
Initial - Identify and analyze what is the trigger to perform a particular insertion reliability - reduce cycle time - reduce cost - Context: How does this technology fits within the overall busines goals - Secure support: Management - executive - mo
Who are the customers - how are they gonna use the product - undestand the product - define possible failures - understand customer needs
Reviews - Test - Measurements - Analysis/Reporting - Process definition/Standards

43. How OCL (Object Constraint Language) is used in the context of the uml
It is a semi formal language - partly mathematical. UML cannot describe constraints on model objects. Addresses invariants which are expressions holding true. Defines preconditions that must be true at the start of a method execution and post conditi
Any flaw in the specification - design or implementation of a product.
Do things in trial basis - pilot projects - collect information - analyze information - iterate
Reuse cycle time - costs - Interoperability - Scalabilty - Flexibility/Maintainability

44. TSP
The discipline dealing with what is good and bad. Moral duty and obligation. The principles of conduct governing and individual or group
Select the defects that will be analyse by the team and define the goals for the root cause analysis activities
Targeted for teams. The goal is to produce effective teams by selecting skilled teams or providing tools to improve their skills.
Rank desired objectives in a 1 to 10 scale

45. DARS
Decision Analysis and Resolution Process. Is a well defined process to analyze possible decisions using formal evaluation process - it involves identifying criteria and evaluate alternatives. It helps to make decision objectively.
From the common root causes identified in the previous meeting - the team select the ones that they will be addressing. The root causes selected will be usually the ones that cause a lot of the defects.
Reviews - Test - Measurements - Analysis/Reporting - Process definition/Standards
Reduce repair or re work cause - eliminate high priority problems and reduce error type

46. Service Oriented Architecture
Lessons learned - have we achieved the desired features? - recommendations for future technologies insertions
Reuse cycle time - costs - Interoperability - Scalabilty - Flexibility/Maintainability
Reviews - Test - Measurements - Analysis/Reporting - Process definition/Standards
The approach to build distributed systems that deliver application functionality as services to end user applications or to build other services.

47. Steps of the Software Reliability Engineering Process
Identify alternatives
Define product - Define operational profile - Define failures - Prepare tests - Execute tests
The probability that a system or capability functions without failure for a specified time or number of natural units in a specified environment
Communicative failure - Missing or incomplete information - Oversight failure - Did not consider all the variables and left out important things - Education or lack of thereof - Lack of understanding - Typo - human error

48. TSP Principles
Team members establish common goals and define roles - Team: develops strategy - defines a customize process - participates in producing the plan and everyone understands the role - negotiates with management on the plan and resources - members fo wo
Strategies that software professionals use to solve recurring problems. Consist of a collection of general techniques - actions and tasks being use to solve recurring problems in an organization.
Integrated Product and Process development is a systematic approach that achieves a timely collaboration of relevant stakeholders throughout the product life cycle to better satisfy customer needs. It involves the use of cross functional teams - inte
Identify use cases - occurrence probability - Engineer Just Right reliability

49. PSP2
What kind of defects do I make in my own work - How can I make fewer mistakes - How can I identify more defects that I overlooked in the past
An approach to construct and prove that a program is correct. Apply mathematical and logical techniques to analyze a program. Apply to system specification and system implementations. Not used for validation but are tied to verification.
A registry or directory that provides a lookup so the consumer can browse the services
Integrated Product and Process development is a systematic approach that achieves a timely collaboration of relevant stakeholders throughout the product life cycle to better satisfy customer needs. It involves the use of cross functional teams - inte

50. The measurement process
Define failures intensity - allocate reliability among components
The individual establish a personal performance baseline - Recognize how you do your job - Document personal processing - Gather data on where do you spend your time - Gather data on the errors you make
Algebraic Specification: Using methods from algebra - OBJ - Low level specifications - Syntax = signature and Semantic part = axioms. Model oriented specification: The state of the system - operations over the states.
Formulation: Define proper metrics - Collection: Collect data on the metric - Analysis: Tools to look at data - charts - graphics - Interpretation: Gain insight - Feedback: Derive recommendations and take actions