Software Engineers - how do you work with the Systems Engineers? (Book recommendation?)
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Hello World, I work for a business that develops devices that incorporate embedded software. In the past, these devices (no, I won't say what they are), have been pretty simple, but with increasing competition and customer expectations they are getting increasingly complex. What we used to do was put the "software" requirements into our system spec so that validation of that design would happen during system test, (which was not so unreasonable back in ye olde days of simple requirements). The problem is that the system engineers are now struggling with the complexity. What we want to do is redefine the process so that the system spec (and required system level testing) are framed in terms of lower level components, such that the system spec is smaller and more comprehensible. My question is whether there is a good software engineering book out there that deals with the system level questions, is comprehensible, and is NOT targetted at military/safety critical systems. We release a new product approximately every 6 months, so the process can't be too heavyweight. I have been searching Amazon, etc, but am swamped by the variety of texts, so some direction is very welcome. Thanks, P.
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Hello World, I work for a business that develops devices that incorporate embedded software. In the past, these devices (no, I won't say what they are), have been pretty simple, but with increasing competition and customer expectations they are getting increasingly complex. What we used to do was put the "software" requirements into our system spec so that validation of that design would happen during system test, (which was not so unreasonable back in ye olde days of simple requirements). The problem is that the system engineers are now struggling with the complexity. What we want to do is redefine the process so that the system spec (and required system level testing) are framed in terms of lower level components, such that the system spec is smaller and more comprehensible. My question is whether there is a good software engineering book out there that deals with the system level questions, is comprehensible, and is NOT targetted at military/safety critical systems. We release a new product approximately every 6 months, so the process can't be too heavyweight. I have been searching Amazon, etc, but am swamped by the variety of texts, so some direction is very welcome. Thanks, P.
AmazingMo wrote:
What we want to do is redefine the process so that the system spec (and required system level testing) are framed in terms of lower level components, such that the system spec is smaller and more comprehensible.
What you are describing sounds like it could benefit from UML, because with UML, you can work with designs at the 30,000 foot level and then drill down into them to describe (and discover!) the component "graph", if you will. I've found it to be very helpful for that. So maybe what you really need is a process and a tool that supports that process, rather than a book. ;) Marc
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AmazingMo wrote:
What we want to do is redefine the process so that the system spec (and required system level testing) are framed in terms of lower level components, such that the system spec is smaller and more comprehensible.
What you are describing sounds like it could benefit from UML, because with UML, you can work with designs at the 30,000 foot level and then drill down into them to describe (and discover!) the component "graph", if you will. I've found it to be very helpful for that. So maybe what you really need is a process and a tool that supports that process, rather than a book. ;) Marc