Hide Secrets (Information Hiding)

Information hiding is part of the foundation of both structured design and object-oriented design. In structured design, the notion of "black boxes" comes from information hiding. In object-oriented design, it gives rise to the concepts of encapsulation and modularity and it is associated with the concept of abstraction. Information hiding is one of the seminal ideas in software development, and so this subsection explores it in depth.

Two Categories of Secrets

Secrets in information hiding fall into two general camps:

• Hiding complexity so that your brain doesn't have to deal with it unless you're specifically concerned with it
  
• Hiding sources of change so that when change occurs, the effects are localized
  

  (Steve McConnell)
  

Experimental Prototyping Risk

A Big risk of prototyping arises when developers do not treat the code as throwaway code. I have found that it is not possible for people to write the absolute minimum amount of code to answer a question if they believe that the code will eventually end up in the production system. They end up implementing the system instead of prototyping. By adopting the attitude that once the question is answered the code will be thrown away, you can minimize this risk. One way to avoid this problem is to create prototypes in a different technology than the production code. You could prototype a Java design in Python or mock up a user interface in Microsoft PowerPoint. If you do create prototypes using the production technology, a practical standard that can help is requiring that class names or package names for prototype code be prefixed with prototype. That at least makes a programmer think twice before trying to extend prototype code (Stephens 2003).

V-Model

The V-model is a software development model which can be presumed to be the extension of the waterfall model. Instead of moving down in a linear way, the process steps are bent upwards after the coding phase, to form the typical V shape. The V-Model demonstrates the relationships between each phase of the development life cycle and its associated phase of testing

The V-model can be said to have developed as a result of the evolution of software testing. Various testing techniques were defined and various kinds of testing were clearly separated from each other which led to the waterfall model evolving into the V-model. The tests in the ascending (Validation) hand are derived directly from their design or requirements counterparts in the descending (Verification) hand. The ‘V’ can also stand for the terms Verification and Validation.

V-Model is more helpful and profitable to companies as it reduces the time for whole development of a new product and can also be used to some complex maintenance projects.

Reference: V-Model

ABC

What is the relationship of a system's software architecture to the environment in which the system will be constructed and exist? The answer to this question is Software architecture is a result of technical, business, and social influences. Its existence in turn affects the technical, business, and social environments that subsequently influence future architectures. We call this cycle of influences, from the environment to the architecture and back to the environment, the Architecture Business Cycle (ABC).