Programmer's code guide

Software quality: concepts and practice

 

First of all, happy winter break!

 

Today, I would like to introduce a book on software that I read over the holidays, Software Quality: Concepts and Exercises.

As a student of information processing science, I am curious and interested in software development and software quality management. To be honest, this book is the most practical and interesting online e-book I think. Rather than a book about software, I think it is more like a guide book, which analyzes the factors that affect software quality and provides ways to improve software quality. The clear explanatory structure attracted me to read further.

 

The reason of my choice

 

Obviously, the quality of the product determines the success of the product, and as future developers (perhaps), the quality of the software should be our primary concern. Through reading this book, I have a deeper understanding of software quality, but also for my future development to provide a great help. In addition, this book not only covers the theoretical knowledge about software quality, but also provides many analogical examples and practical cases so that we can understand the abstract point of view more easily.

 

Content

 

Based on my reading habits, I choose to read from the first chapter. The first chapter focuses on one key word: Software Quality Assurance (SQA). In this chapter, the author proposes that SQA is a systematic approach to ensuring software quality that is integrated into the entire software development process. SQA focuses on prevention, monitoring and ensuring that the development process meets quality requirements. Of course, there should be testing as well as prevention. Software Quality Control (SQC) is responsible for the detection and repair of product defects in the final stage to ensure the final quality of the product. Therefore, SQC is the last part of SQA, the former is product-oriented, the latter is process-oriented.

 

Initially, I thought that a perfect developer would only need to write workable code without mistakes, but after reading this chapter, I realized that we also need to consider the simplicity, usability, maintainability, and other aspects of the product.

It is mentioned in the book that the evaluation standard of software quality is user satisfaction, so the core purpose of software development must be centered on the needs of users, rather than just the realization of technology and functions.

 

While reading the first chapter, I noticed that the author makes a detailed distinction between software errors and software failures and failures. In fact, in our daily life, I do not distinguish these words with similar meanings, but in the process of software development, it is obvious that they have a big difference: error is the defect introduced in the development process, failure is the manifestation of the error, and failure is the result of the failure that leads to the normal operation of the system.

As I said before, this is more of a developer guide, so the core idea of Chapter 1 is really the definition of software quality and SQA. I am very grateful to the author for his detailed and interesting explanation and expansion of seemingly basic knowledge, so that I have a deeper understanding of the details of software development. If you are interested, reading this book is definitely a good opportunity to dive into the deeper meaning of software quality.

 

Is it easy or difficult to read?

The book doesn't have too many technical terms, so it's not very difficult to read, although my English is not very good, it is easy to read for a long time. At the same time, the occasional examples in the book will catch your attention, and overall, this is indeed an easy to read and readable popular science article.