25-Apr-2005

Jesus Perez in  Refactoring talks about our natural tendency to resist change and the problem this causes in an agile development project. It has been his experience that resisting change often leads to a degradation in the software that we are developing. Resistance to change can seem a reasonable decision when the cost of proving that the software is functioning correctly is high. Once a version has been tested you want to say, "If it's working, don't touch it". In such an environment it can be hard to take the decision to refactor the code. Developing automatic testing methods can help to reduce resistance to change and so encourage refactoring. The cost of developing automatic tests can be quite high if these tests are going to be performed only once, but looking at the short term is itself a cause of the tendency to resist change. Does your environment have a tendency to resist change, he asks.

Matriz de Requerimientos ( Requirements matrix)

 Jorge Luis Becerril in  Ingenieria de Software describes a requirements matrix that is important in the process of requirements engineering. The matrix has the following columns: the requirement id, the title of the requirement, the test id of the test that proves the requirement, the priority of the requirement for the system and the risk to the system if the requirement is not properly developed. The priority of the requirement indicates which functions should be developed first. The severity of the risk indicates which requirements should be tested most thoroughly.