Rationale management in software engineering

Resource Information

The work Rationale management in software engineering represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Rationale management in software engineering

Statement of responsibility

Allen H. Dutoit [and others] (eds.)

Contributor

• Dutoit, Allen H

Subject

• Aufsatzsammlung
• COMPUTERS -- Software Development & Engineering | Project Management
• Entscheidungsfindung
• Informatique
• Rationalprinzip
• Requirements engineering
• Software Engineering
• Software engineering -- Management
• Software engineering -- Management
• Software engineering -- Management
• Software engineering -- Management

Genre

• Aufsatzsammlung

Language

eng

Summary

Thirty years ago, I first entered the dark realm of software engineering, through a prior interest in documentation. In those days, documentation pretty much meant functional specifications. The idea that stakeholders in a system (its implementers, its end-users, its maintainers, and so forth) might want something other than an alphabetic list of function definitions was just taking hold. There was an exciting (to me) vision of stakeholders accessing and contributing to explanations of how and why aspects of a system work as they do, tradeoff analysis of concomitant downsides, and perhaps even accounts of why other possible approaches were not followed. There were many challenges to overcome in achieving this vision. The most formidable is the belief that people do not like to create or use do- mentation. This negative image of documentation is (unfortunately) more than just the bias of a few incorrigible system developers. It is more like a deep truth about human information behavior, about how human beings construe and act towards information. Humans are, by default, active users of information; they want to try things out, and get things done. When documentation is interposed as a prerequisite between people and a desired activity, they try to skip through it, circumvent it, or undermine it. Desi- ing information to suit the needs and interests of its users is an abiding challenge, but we have come a long way from functional specifications as the only answer

Is part of

• Springer e-books

Action

digitized

Cataloging source

NOC

Dewey number

005.1068

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Language note

English

LC call number

QA76.758

LC item number

.R38 2006eb

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• dictionaries
• bibliography