[kepler-dev] [Bug 4394] - Need to develop requirements for configuration subsystem

[bugzilla-daemon at ecoinformatics.org]

http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4394


welker4kepler at gmail.com changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Summary|Need to develop design for  |Need to develop requirements
                   |configuration subsystem     |for configuration subsystem




------- Comment #2 from welker4kepler at gmail.com  2009-09-17 21:39 -------
I see that there are some requirements. But, in my opinion, those requirements
are: (1) much too low-level. They are not that far from being implementation
details. (2) Not agreed upon.

As far as whether designing is necessary before coding, I definitely don't
agree that it is necessary. I don't think it is particularly harmful either, as
long as the activity does not handcuff the implementer.

The critical activity that we need to engage in is not design (that can be left
to the implementer) but rather requirements. And when I say requirements, I
mean from a user perspective. What do we want to be configured. What should
configuration files look like? What is the relationship between configuration
and persistent user preferences? What do files that enable internationalization
look like, and how will users change those files.

What I have seen so far, including the file referred to as containing
requirements, contains much lower level details. And just as importantly, none
of these requirements have been discussed. 

Design artifacts such as sequence diagrams (which are of dubious value when the
use case is simple) are definitely premature when requirements are not even
understood nor agreed to.