Software Development Lifecycle
Software Engineering Project is broken into two units: KXA351 Software Engineering Project A and KXA352 Software Engineering Project B,
which must be completed over consecutive semesters. Students work on the same project in both units, unless circumstances prevent this.
All aspects of the development process are experienced: problem specification, requirement extraction, system design, implementation, testing and documentation.
In first semester they produce release 1 (approximately a third of the project), and in second semester they do release 2 (twice as much as release 1).
For the first seven weeks of the semester 1 they do formal analysis and design documentation and complete prototypes of the interfaces.
The next six weeks are spent implementing and testing release 1. In semester 2 at least 4 weeks are spent on design documentation and prototyping.
The rest of the time is spent implementing the product, with at least the final two weeks spent preparing documentation.
It is important to note that from the University’s and the student’s point of view this Project is not just about programming, and considerable
time and effort is spent on documentation, learning how to work as a team and developing significant communication skills.
| "We have been very impressed with the thought and work put into this project by the team. In particular, the design makes
the application extensible to other databases and potentially useful to us for a long time. The team obviously put a great deal of thought at the start
of the project into the way the data handling and database interfacing was to be done. The team has also put good thought into the interface design.
The interface is pretty much exactly as we specified and with additional functionality." |
| Client 2003, 2004: Ben Raymond, AADC, email |
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| "All aspects of the process have been highly professional and the delivered package is of higher quality than the work
I have seen from a number of commercial developers." |
| Client 2002, 2004: Scott Delaney, Optio Pty Ltd, sent via email 2002 |
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| "This unit provided a good learning experience because it created a real, development-focused, team environment to work in.
Having a development project that much larger and fuller in scope than assignments for other units gives a much better understanding of what a real software
development process requires. By running through the development from beginning to end, from the basics of design through to final implementation, provides
a much better experience of developing software rather than just completing a small section of this as an assignment. The team environment also provides
much better experience of how to develop a software project as a whole, including integration of other people’s components, rather than an individual
development where you usually do not have to rely on anyone else’s code or have them relying on yours." |
| Tristan Ling, Nessie Team 2004, Reflection Report |
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| "There have been many new skills that I have developed this semester. I am now more confident with using Unix based operating systems.
I have developed better database design skills as well as being able to setup and administrate databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL. I have also developed more
skill with C, using some features that I have never used before." |
| Tristan Lambert, Nessie Team 2004, Reflection Report |
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| "Not only has it introduced me to real client contact, complete with deadlines, but I have developed new skills in both the design process
and programming. In particular, the idea of prototypes was an extremely helpful skill to pick up. In past units, I felt no need to actually sit down and plan somethin
before delving into it. This may be satisfactory for university assignments but it won’t get you far with real-world projects." |
| Chris Bonde, IVR Team 2004, Reflection Report |
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| "Software project is unlike anything I have undertaken in my academic study. The chance to put the development methodologies that have been
taught to us over our degree into action has been an interesting and rewarding process. The experience of the process has broadened the entire teams outlook into our
possibilities at the conclusion of our degrees. Project thus far has allowed us to experience many different aspects of the development process that no amount of lectures
could divulge. The project has given us insight into all areas of systems development and allowed us to find the areas in which we would like to base
our individual careers in." |
| Matthew Woods, Virtual Team 2003, Reflection Report |
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