Software design is a process to transform user requirements into some suitable form, which helps the programmer in software coding and implementation.
The literary meanings of word 'cohesion' are consistency and organization of different units. In computer science and software engineering, cohesion refers to the level.
For assessing user requirements, an SRS (Software Requirement Specification) document is created whereas for coding and implementation, there is a need of more specific and detailed requirements in software terms. The output of this process can directly be used into implementation in programming languages.
Software design is the first step in SDLC (Software Design Life Cycle), which moves the concentration from problem domain to solution domain. It tries to specify how to fulfill the requirements mentioned in SRS.
Software design yields three levels of results:
Modularization is a technique to divide a software system into multiple discrete and independent modules, which are expected to be capable of carrying out task(s) independently. These modules may work as basic constructs for the entire software. Designers tend to design modules such that they can be executed and/or compiled separately and independently. Download serial number dr web android.
Modular design unintentionally follows the rules of ‘divide and conquer’ problem-solving strategy this is because there are many other benefits attached with the modular design of a software.
Advantage of modularization:
Back in time, all software are meant to be executed sequentially. By sequential execution we mean that the coded instruction will be executed one after another implying only one portion of program being activated at any given time. Say, a software has multiple modules, then only one of all the modules can be found active at any time of execution.
In software design, concurrency is implemented by splitting the software into multiple independent units of execution, like modules and executing them in parallel. In other words, concurrency provides capability to the software to execute more than one part of code in parallel to each other.
It is necessary for the programmers and designers to recognize those modules, which can be made parallel execution.
The spell check feature in word processor is a module of software, which runs along side the word processor itself.
When a software program is modularized, its tasks are divided into several modules based on some characteristics. As we know, modules are set of instructions put together in order to achieve some tasks. They are though, considered as single entity but may refer to each other to work together. There are measures by which the quality of a design of modules and their interaction among them can be measured. These measures are called coupling and cohesion.
Cohesion is a measure that defines the degree of intra-dependability within elements of a module. The greater the cohesion, the better is the program design.
There are seven types of cohesion, namely –
Coupling is a measure that defines the level of inter-dependability among modules of a program. It tells at what level the modules interfere and interact with each other. The lower the coupling, the better the program.
There are five levels of coupling, namely -
Ideally, no coupling is considered to be the best.
The output of software design process is design documentation, pseudo codes, detailed logic diagrams, process diagrams, and detailed description of all functional or non-functional requirements.
The next phase, which is the implementation of software, depends on all outputs mentioned above.
It is then becomes necessary to verify the output before proceeding to the next phase. The early any mistake is detected, the better it is or it might not be detected until testing of the product. If the outputs of design phase are in formal notation form, then their associated tools for verification should be used otherwise a thorough design review can be used for verification and validation.
By structured verification approach, reviewers can detect defects that might be caused by overlooking some conditions. A good design review is important for good software design, accuracy and quality.