Where does prototyping fit into the software engineering process?
• As a explicit step of the process, prototyping goes between the “problem statement” and “problem solution” phases of the process, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: The prototyping phase of the software process. • An alternate view of prototyping is as a first pass of a multi-pass development process, as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: Prototyping in a multi-pass process. • In these notes we’ll investigate prototyping as shown in Figure 1. • The 308/309 course sequence is in effect a first pass of the form shown in Figure 2. • The highly iterative process model shown in Figure 2 is the main idea of “agile development”. • A major goal of agile development is to integrate design and implementation closely with user-level analysis and specification. • Rather that producing a formal requirements specification document, the user requirements are embodied directly in the implementation. • This type of process is possible when • customers are willing to participate actively during the implementat
