Book Image

The Complete Edition - Software Engineering for Real-Time Systems

By : Jim Cooling
Book Image

The Complete Edition - Software Engineering for Real-Time Systems

By: Jim Cooling

Overview of this book

From air traffic control systems to network multimedia systems, real-time systems are everywhere. The correctness of the real-time system depends on the physical instant and the logical results of the computations. This book provides an elaborate introduction to software engineering for real-time systems, including a range of activities and methods required to produce a great real-time system. The book kicks off by describing real-time systems, their applications, and their impact on software design. You will learn the concepts of software and program design, as well as the different types of programming, software errors, and software life cycles, and how a multitasking structure benefits a system design. Moving ahead, you will learn why diagrams and diagramming plays a critical role in the software development process. You will practice documenting code-related work using Unified Modeling Language (UML), and analyze and test source code in both host and target systems to understand why performance is a key design-driver in applications. Next, you will develop a design strategy to overcome critical and fault-tolerant systems, and learn the importance of documentation in system design. By the end of this book, you will have sound knowledge and skills for developing real-time embedded systems.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Preface
15
Glossary of terms

13.1 Why Performance Engineering Is Important

13.1.1 Time as a Design Driver

Many software developers – probably the majority, in fact – place great emphasis on producing designs that are functionally correct. This is especially true of Object-Oriented (OO)-based projects because OO techniques tend to concentrate on abstract logical features such as:

  • Structure (class and class relationships)
  • Encapsulation and information hiding
  • Object and class interfaces and dependencies
  • Object behavior

However, effective real-time embedded models concentrate on factors that are important in the real world. And, unfortunately, there is a significant mismatch between these two models. Real-world software designs are primarily shaped by the following:

  • The natural simultaneous (concurrent) behavior found in real systems
  • The need to coordinate and/or synchronize operations
  • The need to respond to many and varied timing requirements (especially...