Browse Books

Reviewer: Dimitris N. Christodoulakis

In the last ten years, the idea of object orientation has gained popularity in the software engineering community. Starting with Simula and proceeding to Smalltalk and the recent success of C++, object orientation has introduced a new methodology in computer programming. Although C++ programs seem to be difficult to debug and the language has difficulties handling objects and inheritance efficiently, object-oriented methodologies will dominate software engineering for the next decade. Object-oriented methodologies have not only influenced programming languages. Starting from the coding phase, their influence has spread to other stages of the software life cycle, such as requirements analysis, specification, and design. This book discusses object-oriented methodologies for requirements analysis. The authors present an integrated methodology for handling software requirements in an object-oriented way. They provide many useful, nontrivial examples showing how to use the proposed methodology for requirements analysis for large software systems. Their experience in requirements analysis of large, safety-critical systems is evident throughout the book. This experience enables them to discuss the key steps in object-oriented analysis in a structured way and to point out the benefits of this methodology. The book helps the reader understand how to deal with the complexity of requirements analysis and illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of using object-oriented methodologies to deal with it. It teaches a discipline and is useful for the experienced user who has begun to think in terms of object orientation. It omits the theoretical foundation for object orientation, however; the subject is presented only from the empirical point of view. This makes it difficult for newcomers to the field to build a solid theoretical base. The book also considers the Department of Defense standard DoD-STD-2167A from an object-oriented point of view. This will help the professional who confronts the standard on a day-to-day basis.