Methods of Analysis and Design

Abstract

During the 1970s the first significant steps were made towards applying ‘engineering’ techniques, as opposed to ‘programming’ and ‘management’ techniques, to the production of large software systems. The ‘engineering’ techniques that emerged included early versions of approaches of particular relevance to the subject of this book, namely those based on graphical models presenting various views of a proposed system under development. Typically, the views that are produced early in a development are those that support analysis, while the later views identify design structures. Before such techniques came into use, system developments tended to be either programmer led, which meant that nothing existed for external appraisal until working software emerged, or they were controlled from a management level by means of voluminous textual specifications, with poor linkage between the specification and implementation.