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SEOC Resources

In the course we will use UML as the basis for the design of systems implemented in Java. The main resources for the course are:

Software Engineering

• Ian Sommerville. Software Engineering. Eighth Edition, Addison-Wesley, 2007. Companion Website for Software Engineering, eighth edition.
• The SWEBOK homepage provides access to the current version of the Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (2004 Version).
• Bertrand Meyer. Software Engineering in the Academy. IEEE Computer, May 2001, pp. 28-35.

• Model-Driven Development

  • G. Cernosek, E. Naiburg. The Value of Modeling. Rational Software, Copyright IBM Corporation 2004. This paper provides a brief technical discussion on software modeling.
  • S.J. Mellor, A.N. Clark, T. Futagami. Model-Driven Development. IEEE Software, September/October 2003.
  • B. Selic. The Pragmatics of Model-Driven Development. IEEE Software, September/October 2003.
  • P.B. Kruchten. The 4+1 View Model of Architecture. IEEE Software, November 1995.

• Software Design

  • Software Engineering Glossary. Software Design - Part I, Part II and Part III. IEEE Software 2004.
  • M. Fowler. The State of Design. IEEE Software 2005.
  • P. Kruchten. Software Design in a Postmodern Era. IEEE Software 2005.

• Software Architecture

  • G. Booch. On Architecture. IEEE Software, March/April 2006.
  • G. Booch. The Accidental Architecture. IEEE Software, May/June 2006.
  • M. Shaw, P. Clements. The Golden Age of Software Architecture. IEEE Software, March/April 2006.
  • P. Kruchten, H. Obbink, J. Stafford. The Past, Present and Future of Software Architecture. IEEE Software, March/April 2006.
  • D. Garlan and M. Shaw. An Introduction to Software Architecture. School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, CMU-CS-94-166, CMU/SEI-94-TR-21, 1994.
  • N. Medvidovic, R.N. Taylor. A Classification and Comparison Framework for Software Architecture Description Languages. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, January 2000, 26(1):70 - 93.
  • R. Wieringa. A Survey of Structured and Object-Oriented Software Specification Methods and Techniques. ACM Computing Surveys, Vol30, No. 4, December 1998.

• Project Management

  • B. Henderson-Sellers. OO Project Management: The Need for Process. IEEE Software July/August 1997.
  • B. Sadr, P.J. Dousette. An OO Project Management Strategy. IEEE Computer September 1996.
  • A.B. Pyster, R.H. Thayer. Software Engineering Project Management 20 Years Later. IEEE Software September/October 2005.
  • B. Boehm, R. Turner. Management Challenges to Implementing Agile Processes in Traditional Development Organizations. IEEE Software September/October 2005.
  • S. Garcia. How Standards Enable Adoption of Project Management Practice. IEEE Software September/October 2005.
  • W. Royce. Successful Software Management Style: Steering and Balance. IEEE Software September/October 2005.
  • K.E. Nidiffer, D. Dolan. Evolving Distributed Project Management. IEEE Software September/October 2005.
  • P.C. Clements, L.G. Jones, L.M. Northrop, J.D. McGregor. Project Management in a Software Product Line Organization. IEEE Software September/October 2005.

• Risk Management

  • R.E. Fairley. Software Risk Management. IEEE Software May/June 2005.
  • B.W. Boehm. Software Risk Management: Principles and Practices. IEEE Software January 1991.
  • R. Fairley. Risk Management For Software Projects. IEEE Software May 1994.
  • E.H. Conrow, P.S. Shishido. Implementing Risk Management on Software Intensive Projects. IEEE Software May/June 1997.
  • R.N. Charette. Large-Scale Project Management Is Risk Management. IEEE Software July 1996.

• Software Testing

  • James A. Whittaker. What is Software Testing? And Why is it so Hard?. In IEEE Software, January/February 2000, pp. 70-79.
  • Hutchins et al., Experiments on the effectiveness of Dataflow- and Controlflow-Based Test Adequacy Criteria. ICST, May 1994.
  • P.C. Jorgensen, C. Erickson. Object-Oriented Integration Testing. In Communications of the ACM, September 1994, Vol. 37, No. 9.

• Software Maintenace, Evolution and Reuse

  • Manny Lehman, Software's Future: Managing Evolution. In IEEE Software, January-February 1998, pp. 40-44.
  • Lutz and Mikulski, Operational anomalies as a cause of safety-critical requirements evolution. In the Journal of System and Software 65(2):155-161, 2003.
  • William N. Robinson and Hang G. Hoo, Finding Reusable UML Sequence Diagrams Automatically. In IEEE Software, September/October 2004, pp. 60-67.
  • Tiffany Winn and Paul Calder, Is This a Pattern?. In IEEE Software, January/February 2002, pp. 59-66.

• Software Metrics

  • Norman E. Fenton and Shari Lawrence Pfleeger. Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach. Second Edition, International Thomson Computer Press, 1996.
  • J. Boegh, S. De Panfilis, B. Kitchenham and A. Pasquini, A Method for Software Quality Planning, Control, and Evaluation. In IEEE Software, March/April 1999, pp. 69-77.

• Software Engineering Bullets?

  • The 70s...
    • D.L. Parnas, A Course on Software Engineering Techniques, 1972.
    • M.V. Zelkowitz, Perspectives on Software Engineering, 1978.
    • B.W. Boehm, Software Engineering - As it is, 1979.
  • The 80s...
    • B.W. Boehm, Seven Basic Principles of Software Engineering, 1983.
    • D.L. Parnas, Software Aspects of Strategic Defense Systems, 1985.
    • A.N. Habermann, Technological Advances in Software Engineering, 1986.
    • F.P. Brooks, No Silver Bullet - Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering, 1987.
    • M.M. Tanik, In Search of Silver Bullet, 1988.
  • The 90s...
    • M. Shaw, Prospects for an Engineering Discipline of Software, 1990.
    • M. Harris, There Are No Silver Bullets!, 1991.
    • D. Harel, Biting the Silver Bullet: Toward a Brighter Future for System Development, 1992.
    • D.L. Parnas, Software Aging, 1994.
    • R.L. Glass, The Software-Research Crisis, 1994.
    • J.B. Thompson, OO is NOT the Silver Bulet, 1996.
    • L.B.S. Raccoon, Fifty Years of Progress in Software Engineering, 1996.
    • S. Shapiro, Splitting the Difference: The Historical Necessity of Synthesis in Software Engineering, 1997.
    • D.L. Parnas, Software Engineering: An Unconsummated Marriage, 1997.
    • D.L. Parnas, Successful Software Engineering Research, 1998.
    • W. Buntine, Will domain-specific code synthesis become a silver bullet?, 1998.
    • J. Voas, Software Quality's Eight Greatest Myths, 1999.
  • The New Millennium...
    • A. Bryant, "It's Engineering Jim... but not as we know it": Software Engineering - solution to the software crisis, or part of the problem?, 2000.
    • M.M. Moore, Software Reuse: Silver Bullet?, 2001.
    • J. Kasser, Configuration Management: The silver bullet for cost and schedule control, 2002.
    • D.M. Berry, The Inevitable Pain of Software Development: Why There Is No Silver Bullet, 2004.
    • M. Blaha, A Copper Bullet for Software Quality Improvement, 2004.
    • M.W. Evans, C. Segura, F. Doherty, The Myth of the Best Practice Silver Bullet, 2005.

Dependability

• R.N. Charette. Why Software Fails. IEEE Spectrum, September 2005.
• A. Avizienis, J.-C. Laprie, B. Randell and C. Landwehr. Basic Concepts and taxonomy of Dependable and Secure Computing. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing 1(1):11-33, 2004.
• Nancy G. Leveson. Safeware: System Safety and Computers. Addison-Wesley, 1995.
• Neil Storey. Safety-Critical Computer Systems. Addison-Wesley, 1996.

• Safety-critical Case Studies

  • Ariane 5 launcher explosion. Ian Sommerville's presentation giving an overview of the causes of the system software failure. The Ariane 5 rocket failed on its maiden flight due to software problems. The presentation discusses how these occurred.
  • Airbus 340 flight control system. Ian Sommerville's presentation prepared from the case study in Storey's book that give an overview of the A340 system. The presentation discusses the use of redundancy in the Airbus flight control system.
  • London Ambulance Despatching System. Ian Sommerville's presentation gives an overview of the London Ambulance Despatching System and discusses the failure of the system.
  • Medical Devices: The Therac-25. This appendix is taken from Nancy Leveson, Safeware: System Safety and Computers, Addison-Wesley, 1995. This paper analyses the causes of the Therac-25 accidents.
  • Dolores R. Wallace and D. Richard Kuhn. Lessons from 342 Medical Device Failures. In Proceedings of HASE 1999, pp. 123-131.
  • A Collection of Software Bugs by Thomas Huckle.

Requirements Engineering

• Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson. Mastering the Requirements Process. Addison-Wesley, 1999.
• Gerald Kotonya and Ian Sommerville. Requirements Engineering: Processes and Techniques. John Wiley, 1998. The book has an associated set of OHP Transparencies (Powerpoint 4) which may be downloaded from the Accompanying Website. The VORD method which is introduced in the book as a viewpoint-oriented technique for interactive systems specification has an associated toolset, written in Java, which is available free of charge for all readers of the book.
• Ian Sommerville and Pete Sawyer. Requirements Engineering: A good practice guide. John Wiley, 1997. The book presents requirements engineering guidelines which vary from the very simple, such as make sure that your requirements are given a unique identifier, to the very complex, e.g., use formal specification for safety-critical systems. The book also includes three chapters which provide more detailed advice on system modelling, formal methods for specification and viewpoint-oriented requirements elicitation. The Accompanying Website provides links to resources with information on requirements engineering. Among the Requirements Engineering guideliens, Guideline 3.1 - Define a standard document structure - describes the benefits of a standardize requirements document.
• Dean Leffingwell and Don Widrig. Managing Software Requirements: A Use Case Approach. Addison-Wesley, Second Edition, 2003.
• Here are some papers on Requirements Engineering:
  • A.M. Davis, P. Hsia. Giging Voice to Requirements Engineering. IEEE Software, March 1994.
  • J. Siddiqi. Challenging Universal truths of Requirements Engineering. IEEE Software, March 1994.
  • J. Siddiqi, M.C. Shekaran. Requirements Engineering: The Emerging Wisdom. IEEE Software, March 1996.
  • N. Juristo, A.M. Moreno, A. Silva. Is the European Industry Moving toward Solving Requirements Engineering Problems?. IEEE Software, Novemver/December 2002.
  • I. Sommerville. Integrated Requirements Engineering: A Tutorial. IEEE SOfwtare, January/February 2005.
  They provide a general background on the state-of-the-art in Requirements Engineering.
• Requirements Specification Template. You may want to use the Volere template (tailored for your purposes) as support for your practical work. James Robertson and Suzanne Robertson. VOLERE: Requirements Specification Template. Edition 10.1, Atlantic Systems Guild. The Volere template is quite comprehensive and provides a useful guide to constructing a requirements document. [Pdf Version] [Word Version]

• Requirements Traceability

  • M. Jarke. Requirements Tracing. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 41, No. 12, December 1998.
  • B. Ramesh. Factors Influencing Requirements Traceability Practice. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 41, No. 12, December 1998.

• Requirements Viewpoints

  • I. Sommerville, P. Sawyer. Viewpoints: principles, problems and a practical approach to requirements engineering. Annals of Software Engineering 1997.

UML

• UML, Schaum's Outline Series, by Simon Bennet, John Skelton and Ken Lunn, McGraw-Hill, 2001, ISBN 0-07-709673-8.
• R. Miles, K. Hamilton. Learning UML 2.0. O'Reilly 2006. Safari Books Online link
• D. Pilone, N. Pitman. UML 2.0 in a nutshell. O'Reilly 2005. Safari Books Online link
• James Rumbaugh, Ivar Jacobson and Grady Booch. The Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual. Second Edition, Addison-Wesley, 2004. Safari Books Online link
• Perdita Stevens and Rob Pooley. Using UML: Software Engineering with Objects and Components. Addison-Wesley, 2000.
• The UML Object Management Group provides links to all the latest UML standards. Moreover, there are links to Object-Oriented development work and an Introduction to OMG's Unified Modeling Language (UML).
• Practical UML: A Hands-On Introduction for Developers - by Randy Miller.
• The Agile Modelling (AM) site is another very good resource on object-oriented modelling. A particularly nice reference is the Introduction to the Diagrams of UML 2.0.
• Safari Books Online - Bookshelf

• Use cases

  • G. Winters. Use Case Terminology. IEEE Software, March/April 2005.
  • R. Widgen. Requirements Analysis and UML: Use cases and Class Diagrams. Computing and Control Engineering, April 2003.
  • Alistair Cockburn maintains the UseCases.org web site in which you will find useful resources for writing use cases.
  • Basic Use Case Template. You may want to use the use case template (tailored for your purposes) as support for your practical work. Alistair Cockburn. Structuring Use Cases with Goals. The paper introduces a Basic Use Case Template.

• CRC Cards

  • K. Beck, W. Cunningham. A Laboratory for Teaching Object-Oriented Thinking. In Proceedings of OOPSLA '89.
  • Alistair Cockburn. Using CRC Cards.
  • Alistair Cockburn. Responsibility-based Modeling.
  • R. Biddle, J. Noble, E. Tempero. Reflections on CRC Cards and OO Design. In Proceedings of TOOLS Pacific 2002.
  The c2.com and the Alistair Cockburn's website contain further information on CRC cards.
• David Harel. Statecharts: A visual formalism for complex systems. In Science of Computer Programming 8 (1987) 231-274.

Software Tools

• The course uses the open source Argo/UML. Argo/UML is available in DICE machines. You can also download a version for your own laptop or PC. There are other UML tools in the world. You might want to look at the advice provided by Objects by Design and at the UML Resource Center at Rational. The UML Resource Center is a good resource for information on UML and on the Rational Rose design tool.
• The course uses the open source eclipse, which consists of a development platform and application frameworks for building software. Note that there are eclipse plugins that allow the integration, to some extent, of UML diagrams with the java developemt framework of eclipse. In particular, the following plugins provide different levels and modes of integration between UML and the eclipse platform:
  • Argo2Ecore converts UML models created with ArgoUML to the Eclipse UML dialect Ecore. It allows users to create graphical UML models using ArgoUML and then use the EMF codegenerator to generate java code.
  • ArgoEclipse provides an integration between eclipse and UML components of ArgoUML. Instead of a standalone application, all ArgoUML functionality is available tightly integrated with eclipse.
  • Omondo EclipseUML enables eclipse with UML diagrams. Omondo provides two editions: Free (provides limited functionalities) and Studio ( is available with an academic license).
  Unfortunately, most plugins provide some limitations - this is my opinion - with respect to modeling. They allow you to draw UML diagrams, although they provide limited support in order to maintain consistency and traceability between diagrams. These limitations may affect modeling (activities) by introducing inconsistencies - this is my opinion -. Moreover, poor consistency and traceability affect software engineering practices. Note that the ability of converting, exporting or importing UML diagrams depends on the level of integration supported by the specific plugin. You may experience problems of compatibility.

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This page is maintained by Massimo Felici (mfelici@inf.ed.ac.uk)