Discussion Questions for Fowler, Chapter 2
Some Acronyms
RUP: Rational Unified Process
Waterfall Model/Agile Programming Comparison
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Is it just me, or does the waterfall style seem unintelligent? Doesn't it
make more sense to test as much as possible throughout the program to
ensure everything is going correctly rather than testing the whole thing at
the end? (David)
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Would a project using the predictive planning method have to also use the
waterfall method? (Mike L)
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Fowler mentions that many in the OO community favor iterative development
over the waterfall approach. Are there people who object to this approach?
Other than the issue of rework is there any advantage to using the
waterfall approach or the hybrid staged delivery life cycle over the
iterative approach? (Mike C)
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Are there specific types of software development projects that necessitate
the use of either a waterfall or an iterative process, or does it depend on
the teams/administrations personal preferences? (Dave)
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The author makes it sound like you aren't doing the waterfall style when
you are doing the iterative style, but doesn't the definition of the
iterative style mean you are doing the waterfall style several times?
(David)
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What is the difference between iterative style and doing waterfall style
multiple times before release? (Chayapan)
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What are the characteristics of a project that determine a process that one
needs to use? (Saugar)
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Fowler says that he believes that many people claim to be using an
iterative development process when in fact they are using a waterfall
development process. If as iterative process is as popular as Fowler says,
why do so many firms still use a waterfall process? (Jonathan)
Details of the Waterfall Model
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What advantages (if any) would there be to using a waterfall approach?
(Alex)
Details of Agile Programming
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What are the advantages of using RUP? (Monica)
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Is the RUP just a way of organizing a project? And if so, how is it that it
is copy-righted by Rational? Also, why would anyone choose to use RUP if
they could just call it UP and not deal with the legal issues of RUP? (Dave)
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Do agile processes apply strictly to group work or do these processes also
support working individually? (Monica)
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What does the author mean by "Agile processes tend to be low in
ceremony"(pg 25)? (Saugar)
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It seems that agile processes alone would not work very well on very large
scale projects (i.e. an operating system) simply because the scale is so
huge that all members of the team can't know eachother on a personal
basis. Therefore, there are going to be multiple teams working on different
parts of the project. How can agile processes be applied to the
interactions of the teams and the building of the combined product?
(Elijah)
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When using an iterative process why is it recommended to use a sketch,
while when using a waterfall we should use a blueprint? (Gaurav)
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What is the difference between the agile development processes named in the
book? (Mike L)
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What is involved with refactoring code? How is it different from other
methods of rewriting code? (Lorelei)
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Fowler says that agile processes are strongly adaptive in their nature.
Is this due mostly to them being lightweight or is it due in part to
other factors? (Jonathan)
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Are there any other industries that use iterative processes? Do the
concepts of waterfall and iterative processes even apply to other
industries? (John)
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Could you give us examples of A class diagram,An activity diagram and A
state diagram? (Sheng)
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what's extreme Programming (Sheng)
Patterns
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What is the advatntage of Patterns and what is UML's place in it. (Gaurav)
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Where and how can I learn or lookup "patterns"? What is a good way to
locate and utilize these "pattern" resources? (Chayapan)
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The text mentions continuous integration and the use of automated check-in
and build tools. Are we going to be using cvs or something similar for our
projects?
Could uml be used to model the development process? Would this be useless?
(Elijah)
Additional Questions
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What are some ways to prevent the damage done to a software project by
"requirements churn"? (Alex)
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What are the differences between lightweight and heavyweight processes?
(Lorelei)
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Are there any differences in terms of advantages or disadvantages of using
foward or reverse engineering in sketches particuarly? (Gaurav)
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What is the significance of formal process for a program made by a single
person compared to one made by a huge team? (John)
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What are the limitations of setting up a proxy object? How where the first
proxies used and how did they come about? (Mike C)
This document is available on the World Wide Web as
http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~walker/courses/223.sp05/readings/fowler-2.shtml
