Reading Response for Lecture 09

Below is a list of the readings for this class with some suggestions on how to approach them. Please create a post in this discussion consisting of at least 200 words discussing any issue from the required reading for the week.  See the Reading Response Grading Rubric for details about how posts will be graded.

The Readings

Severance Chapters 6 & 7: Assessing Success and Failure, Conclusions and Implications. These (relatively) brief chapters bring the GMI story to a close. Look for the connection between the actions taken (or not taken) in the previous chapters.

Brooks on The Mythical Man Month (online reserves).  Note:  this reading is the first half of the pdf (we already read the second half).  One of the most influential articles on the subject of software development ever written.  Have you ever been involved in a project where people were added in an attempt to meet a deadline?  How did that work?

Optional:  Larman Chapters 15 and 16. Chapter 15 discusses interaction diagrams, which are used to represent the dynamic behavior of a system by showing how objects interact with each other. Chapter 16 shows the additional features that are added to a class diagram in order to capture the methods associated with classes as discovered in the interaction diagrams.  These readings do provide an interesting window into the level at which object oriented systems are actually implemented, but as it turns out, they do not apply very well to how systems are built in APEX. I will be covering in class the basic concepts from the readings that I think are relevant to the course, but the slides are self contained and will not require you to prepare this material.