CSCI 5828

CSCI 5828 Homework 1: Informal Specification

This assignment asks you to write an informal, natural language specification for an incompletely defined software system. It also asks you to evaluate your specification from a software engineering perspective. See below, for more details.

Part 1

Write a specification for a software system that controls a home security system. Assume that the system contains the following devices: keypad (for manipulating the system), wireless monitoring devices (to be placed next to doors and windows that need to be protected), sirens (to sound alarms) and motion detectors (for covering areas of the house not necessarily protected by the monitoring devices. In two to three paragraphs of text describe at a high level, what the software system must do and the issues that the system must address.

Part 2

Evaluate your specification from a software engineering perspective (for instance, does your specification exhibit or lack any of the issues discussed in Lecture 2?) in one to two paragraphs of text. What would you want to do next to help improve the specification?

Requirements and Due Dates

Please send me your assignment as a plain ASCII e-mail message (do not use postscript or PDF for this assignment and do not send an attachment, include your answer directly in the e-mail message). Remember to start your e-mail message with the necessary header information as discussed in Lecture 1.

Your assignment must be received by 11 AM MST on the day it is due.

In-class students: Due January 25, 2000

CATECS students : Due February 1, 2000

Please send your message to <kena@cs.colorado.edu>.