The document outlines the four fundamental activities in software engineering: specification, design and implementation, validation, and evolution. It explains how these activities are organized differently across development processes, such as waterfall and incremental models. The document also emphasizes the importance of testing, debugging, and adapting software to evolving requirements.

1. Fundamental activities in software
engineering
Software Engineering 10

2. Four fundamental activities that are
part of all software development
processes
Specification, design and
implementation, validation and
evolution

3. Specification – defining what the
software should do
Design and implementation –
defining the software and data
organization and implementing the
system

4. Validation – testing the system for
bugs and to check it meets its
requirements
Evolution – changing the system
after it has gone into use

5. The four basic process activities of
specification, development,
validation and evolution are
organized differently in different
development processes.

6. For example, in the waterfall model,
they are organized in sequence,
whereas in incremental development
they are interleaved.

7. The requirements engineering process
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8. Design a software architecture and
identify the major system
components
Refine to add detail if required

9. Implementation involves adding
detail to the design and
programming the system

10. Design and implementation are
closely related and are normally
inter-leaved activities.

11. A general model of the design process
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12. The software is implemented either
by developing a program or
programs or by configuring an
application system.

13. Programming is an individual activity
with no standard process. Different
people program in different ways

14. Debugging is the activity of using
testing to reveal program faults and
then correcting these faults.

15. Test-first development integrates
testing/programming and debugging

16. Verification and validation (V & V) is
intended to show that a system
meets its stated requirements
(verification) and also meets the real
needs of the system customer
(validation).

17. System testing involves executing
the system with test cases that are
derived from the specification of the
real data to be processed by the
system.

18. As well as system testing, system
validation may involve other reviews
and automated program checking
procedures

19. Stages of testing
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20. Testing phases in a plan-driven software
process (V-model)
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21. Software is inherently flexible and
can change.

22. As requirements change through
changing business circumstances,
the software that supports the
business must also evolve and
change.

23. Although there has been a
demarcation between development
and evolution (maintenance) this is
increasingly irrelevant as fewer and
fewer systems are completely new

24. System evolution
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25. The first part of my book on software
engineering focuses on these
fundamental activities of software
engineering.