Thursday, June 23, 2005
Non-functional requirements - Bloody numbers!
Phew, it's sweltering! It's baking outside (BBC weather says 28 deg Celsius) and there is no air conditioning in this office. Things are not too bad though. With a few fans and the windows open and some trees outside, at least the air is moving.
The project architect and I sat down and looked at the Non-Functional Requirements for the interfaces yesterday. The exercise was useful if a little discouraging. Discouraging because it hightlighted that we are trying to design something(s, 4 things actually) and we've not been given the most basic sizing information by either the ultimate customer or the system with which we are trying to connect.
Examples are:
Ho hum. It's going to be fun. Requirements from nothing, building on sand again.
The project architect and I sat down and looked at the Non-Functional Requirements for the interfaces yesterday. The exercise was useful if a little discouraging. Discouraging because it hightlighted that we are trying to design something(s, 4 things actually) and we've not been given the most basic sizing information by either the ultimate customer or the system with which we are trying to connect.
Examples are:
- We know the structure of the records (and therefore their size) but we don't know how many we are going to be sent. Sizings could vary by up to 4 times.
- We don't know when we are going to receive the request, or when the other system requires a response.
- Of course, there are several steps between them and us, none of which are under our control and we have no idea what latency they introduce.
Ho hum. It's going to be fun. Requirements from nothing, building on sand again.
# posted by tom_gillies @ 1:05 PM 
