Requirements Engineering

I know I should read all those methods more in details.


I found this in the Poll Best Requirement Survey by Xebia.

So what is a requirements method? Since this is not a generally agreed-upon term from the dictionary, we need to define it. There are a few cases where a coherent set of ideas, written down in a book, can easily be seen as a 'method'. Two cases in point are "Volere" and "the Wiegers approach". They both cover almost the entire working area of requirements engineering in at least some detail. In other cases, an approach only covers one area of requirements engineering, such as elicitation techniques. Another possibility is a method that covers a larger area of software or business development, and includes part of requirements engineering. An example of the latter is RUP.
Methods
The methods covered in this survey are:

* Volere (Suzanne and James Robertson)
* Wiegers (Karl Wiegers)
* The Software Requirements Memory Jogger (Ellen Gottesdiener)

* Requirements by Collaboration (Ellen Gottesdiener)
* Just Enough Requirements Management (Alan M. Davis)
* Competitive Engineering (Tom Gilb)
* eRequirements (Stephen Robinson)

* RUP (Rational Software)
* Scrum (Sutherland, Schwaber et al.)

Terms and definitions

Requirements Engineering : All project life cycle activities associated with understanding a product's necessary capabilities and attributes.
Includes:

Requirements Management : Working with a defined set of product requirements throughout the product's development process and its operational life.
Includes: status tracking, tracing, change management, versioning

Requirements Development : The product of requirements development is a requirements baseline that defines the product to be built.

Elicitation : Identifying software or system requirements from various sources through various techniques.

Analysis : Classifying requirements information into various categories, evaluating requirements for desirable qualities, representing requirements in different forms, deriving detailed requirements from high-level requirements, negotiating priorities, etc.

Specification : Documenting a system's requirements in a structured, shareable, and manageable form.

Validation : Evaluating a work product to determine whether it satisfies the specifications and conditions imposed on it at the beginning of the development phase during which it was created.

Stakeholder Management : the activities a business enterprise initiates to manage the relationships with its stakeholders

I can't help to copy the whole thing since I am not sure about the longevity of this page.

Some points also in Wikipedia on Requirement.

What is an architect ?

Two good elements of response :
- Role Profile for Software Architects by Simon Brown. A great way to structure the response.
- Characteristics of a software architect by Peter Eeles (Maybe tainted with functional or domain architect)

Enterprise Architecture

A nice PDF from The Zachman Institute for Framework Advancement (ZIFA) about Enterprise Architecture.
Seen in Red Hat post : Provisioning our New Middleware Architecture.
Note : RedHat lacks a podcast : they started one but the latest post is 2 years old !

In search of a good Pen

I am searching a good pen. Easy, clean, since I have a very poor calligraphic skill.

I tried the following :

1. 
   
   
   HI-TECPOINT V5, LIQUID, BLACK : BX-V5-B
   
   Roller Ball Pens 0.5, Width of stroke: 0.3 mm
   
   So far the best I tried. A bit too fine and the grip isn't that good, but no big problem. 05/05/2007.
   



2. 
   
   
   SUPER GRIP,M,BLK,BK INK : BPGP-10R-M-B-B
   
   Ball Point Pens, Width of stroke: 0.4 mm.
   
   The ink doesn't flow very well, looks like their "oil based ink" becomes hard.
   



3. 
   
   
   ALPHAGEL BLACK, 07, B.INK : BL-AG-7-B
   
   Ball Point Pens, Width of stroke: 0.4 mm.
   
   Big deception : the ink flow isn't steady some blanks and some splotch. It is sad because the shape and the grip is very good.
   



4. 
   
   
   MARKING PEN, V-SIGN, BLACK : SW-VSP-B
   
   Width of stroke: 0.6 mm.
   
   Stroke too wide for me. 10/04/2007.
   



5. 
   
   
   MARKING PEN, V FINELINER, LIQUID, BLACK : SW-VPP-B
   
   Fine Line Marker Pens 1.2, Width of stroke: 0.5 mm
   
   Stroke too wide for me. 05/05/2007.
   

Support the Libre Graphics Meeting !

Support the Libre Graphics Meeting!

With surveys showing that the main gaps in the Linux desktop offering now are graphics applications (Photoshop, Illustrator, Visio, AutoCAD), the conference becomes even more vital to the advancement of the free software desktop.

... For those who appreciate the projects that this conference supports (including Inkscape, Scribus, GIMP, Blender, Krita, Open Clipart, …) and have been looking for a way to support them, then please give generously ...

Semantic Web, RDF and URI in the real world

My interest in Semantic Web has slowly diminished as so few applications and data are available. But I keep an eye on it and from time to time, I read an article.
This time : Cool URIs for the Semantic Web a note from the W3C. It is about the way you should serve content and uses URI for RDF, HTML and "Real Things". Conclusion is : there are no good way to do it, they present 2 very different solutions among others. So since both solutions are far from perfect, every one is making his semantic web.

One strange point : "a naming scheme should not confuse things and the documents representing them.". I have a mixed feeling about this. It states that a "Thing" should have an URI, but that URI should be distinct from the URI of the document describing the "Thing". So what is the point of having an URI if it just redirect to a real document. Just for reference ? Then why should it return something at all ? It is more practical. Sure. Then it looks like a mess resulting from theoretical and practical views.

Among the articles I read and didn't blog about :
- Some editors/publishers may see a value in adding metadata to their content (articles, reviews ...). This would provide more content to be retrieved with semantic Web applications.
- Computer will be able to add more significant metadata automatically. Normal users would just have to validate.
- Data-portability, will raise the need to detach the data and replace the format (HTML/CSS) with metadata. So one will be able to move his data from one site to another, each one providing its own format and applications.

No doubt that we are going to benefit from the semantic web on a large scale one day, but not today !

Easy creation of Java EE application

A bit like WaveMaker : Java EE Spider will allow you to create a Java EE Web application.
From the screenshots it seems to be "wizard driven".

They have controversial view about Model Driven Development, with the UML diagrams and code generation tools. I don't agree that MDD isn't agile, it is more in the way it is used and the culture associated.

It looks like a wave of UI-First Software Development things.

I feel like we are trying to establish a continuum from requirements and prototypes to final products, using successive iterations.