-One thing you need to know right away about software processes - -2
-is that there's not just one single process, but there are multiple, - -3
-possible processes, depending on your context, depending on the kind of - -4
-applications that you are developing. In this course, we are going to try - -5
-to cover the spectrum of the possible processes, as much as - -6
-possible, by focusing on four main software processes. The first one is - -7
-what we call normally the waterfall process. And, we call it waterfall - -8
-because in the process we go from one phase to the other - -9
-in the same way in which water follows the flow - -10
-in a waterfall. The second process that we consider is what - -11
-we call evolutionary prototyping, and in this case, instead of - -12
-following this set of rigid steps, all we're trying to do - -13
-is to start with an initial prototype and evolve it - -14
-based on the feedback from the customer. We will then move - -15
-towards a slightly more formal process, which is the rational unified - -16
-process or the unified software process. And this is a kind - -17
-of project heavily based on the use of UML, so we - -18
-will also cover UML when discussing this kind of project. Finally, - -19
-the fourth kind of process we will consider is the family - -20
-of agile software processes. And these are processes in which we - -21
-sacrifice the discipline a little bi,t in order to be more - -22
-flexible and be more able to account for changes and in - -23
-particular for changes in requirements. We are going to cover each - -24
-one of these four processes extensively in the rest of the class. - -- cgit 1.4.1