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

9. Software Analysis and Design – Methods and Methodologies

Finally, we've arrived at a state where theory and ideas can be turned into practice. The starting point for this? When a customer arrives on our doorstep asking us to develop a software system for their application. It finishes when the delivered software runs reliably, correctly, and safely in the target system (cynics may argue that by this definition, most jobs are never finished). However, what concerns us here is the piece that fits between the two end states, the design and development phases. Just how do we go about this process? What methods should we use? What tools are available? How can we best use these tools? In this chapter, we'll concentrate on the methods used to deduce exactly what our software should do (analysis), then look at ways to design software to meet these needs.

There are two major steps in the development process. The first involves translating the customer's requirements...