Software Development
Life cycles in Software and Knowledge Engineering : a comparative review.
Michael Wilson, David Duce Informatics Dept., Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Dan Simpson Dept. of Computer Science, Brighton Polytechnic.
ABSTRACT Developments in software engineering have led to models of the system life cycle incorporating the use of prototyping and formal methods of program verification. These are becoming supported by integrated project support environments and permit the planning and monitoring of software development projects. In contrast, Knowledge Based Systems (KBS) are developed using informal views of the system life cycle. Tools have been developed to support some stages of the life cycle in an undisciplined manner. The commercial use of KBS needs development projects to be planned and monitored. This requires methods and tools based on systematic life cycle models to be established for KBS. This paper reviews the current state of life cycle approaches to software engineering and KBS development projects in order to provide a direction for the development of methodical KBS life cycle models.
-2Introduction Over the past 20 years it has become accepted in the software engineering community that software development should be undertaken using a model of the software life cycle. The benefits of such an approach include: the ability to plan the project; the ability to estimate resource requirements for the development; the ability to size the likely software product; the ability to estimate hardware requirements; the ability to update estimates on the basis of real figures during monitoring; the availability of documents for monitoring and control; the ability to fit the development process into a Quality Management System; a development structure which may be audited for quality. The result of using life cycle approaches is that the development process is made visible to the project management, project controller, quality controller, the project sponsor and
Michael Wilson, David Duce Informatics Dept., Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Dan Simpson Dept. of Computer Science, Brighton Polytechnic.
ABSTRACT Developments in software engineering have led to models of the system life cycle incorporating the use of prototyping and formal methods of program verification. These are becoming supported by integrated project support environments and permit the planning and monitoring of software development projects. In contrast, Knowledge Based Systems (KBS) are developed using informal views of the system life cycle. Tools have been developed to support some stages of the life cycle in an undisciplined manner. The commercial use of KBS needs development projects to be planned and monitored. This requires methods and tools based on systematic life cycle models to be established for KBS. This paper reviews the current state of life cycle approaches to software engineering and KBS development projects in order to provide a direction for the development of methodical KBS life cycle models.
-2Introduction Over the past 20 years it has become accepted in the software engineering community that software development should be undertaken using a model of the software life cycle. The benefits of such an approach include: the ability to plan the project; the ability to estimate resource requirements for the development; the ability to size the likely software product; the ability to estimate hardware requirements; the ability to update estimates on the basis of real figures during monitoring; the availability of documents for monitoring and control; the ability to fit the development process into a Quality Management System; a development structure which may be audited for quality. The result of using life cycle approaches is that the development process is made visible to the project management, project controller, quality controller, the project sponsor and
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