Archive for August, 2013
Aug
22
I have selected Murach’s Visual Basic 2010 by Anne Boehm as the textbook for CSC-300 for both the fall semester and the BDP winter term.
Addendum of 13 May 2014: Murach now has a VB 2012 edition available. Based on student feedback, the jury is still out regarding its continued use. It’s not that they think the book is bad, but rather that they tend to refer to my lecture notes instead, going to the book only for specific lookups.
Aug
8
Here’s a quote from an excellent article by Andrew Pollack about the importance of going beyond the simple capturing of requirements:
When I'm brought in to work on a significant development project as the lead, the first step is to sit down with the client and understand not just the requirements, but the goals behind the requirements and how the work they're asking for will impact the people using system. My job, at this stage is to use my experience to anticipate the unseen requirements, the potential problems, and the unintended consequences of the changes they're requesting. I do this through asking questions and getting them to walk me through both the current process and the updated process. If we have the right people in the room -- not just the project managers but also representatives of people who use the systems daily -- then during this phase they realize how the real world use differs from the project plan paperwork. We're able to adapt the plan and build what they need. Spending the right money up front on this kind of analysis prevents the kinds of disasters Cringley is pointing out.
The full article is not about requirements capture per se, but the quote above is relevant to my classes in Systems Analysis and Design and Visual Programming.