Chapter 7: Delivery, Installation, and Documentation Ronald J. Leach Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Delivery Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Some Compression utilities UtilityOperating system tarLinux, UNIX barLinux, UNIX cpioLinux, UNIX gunzipMany pkzipMany BinhexWindows GzipMacintosh Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Two Likely Possibilities You and your team deliver the product to customers yourself (“direct delivery”) You deliver your product to an App Store and the product is delivered to customers via an App Store (“indirect delivery”) Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

For direct delivery The project can be delivered physically via a CD, DVD, or similar The product can be made available for download (requires a secure website) In each case, installation instructions are needed Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Typical add-ons README file Set of system requirements Configuration information Installation log Error checking Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Use the implementation environment Compress, decompress utilities The target system’s existing installer software Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Customer Support Handle issues in problems due to unusual configuration on target computer or smartphone Might be needed to handle credit card/license issues Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

One additional delivery To yourself (or the developing organization) Reason: keep a clean copy for future use This should be done on a dedicated machine or, at least, a dedicated portion of the same machine – Cloud storage on a virtual machine is better Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Installation Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

A possible issue Customers may not be expect to be charged for installation if there are problems after delivery Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Typical add-ons README file Set of system requirements Configuration information Installation log Error checking Help (FAQs) Help (on-line or telephone/chat) Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Possible complications The delivered product needs a COTS product or utility that is not installed on the user’s computer The user’s computer does not have the proper operating system version (a configuration management issue!) Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Documentation Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

The two main types of documentation Internal – Intended for programmers and designers External – Intended for users – Intended for potential purchasers – intended for programmers and designers Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

What kinds of internal documentation? Comments within programs – Explain purpose of each module – Explain interfaces of each module – README files within directories Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Requirements and Design Documents Often not released to customers Design rationales Requirements documents Database of errors detected during development Intended for use by maintainers of the software system Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

What kinds of external documentation? None FAQs Tutorials On-line assistance ( ) On-line assistance (help desk) Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

External documentation, cont. Training courses Operations manuals Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

FAQs May be included in the software’s advertising Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

App Stores Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Very different from other models One delivery to the App Store to await approval based on coding standards and security. (Most stringent on Apple App Store) After that approval, all delivery and installation issues are handled by the App Store. Documentation is often little more than FAQs. Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Agile Development Case Study: Delivery, Installation, and Documentation Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Very different from other processes Most required components will be available on the target machine. The many prototypes in this type of development have been refined until they meet the customer’s requirements Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

An observation There is little actual data on the delivery costs and installation/documentation effort for projects that use an agile development process. Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

The Major Continuing Software Development Project: Delivery, Installation and Documentation Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Use a RTM List the requirements, documentation, and all delivered items in the RTM to adhere to quality standards. (Our RTM was vague on this, so it needs to be fixed.) Use the RTM as a status check. Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,

Improve the development process Enter data about the project’s cost, schedule, and quality into a database for further analysis. This is a good time to consider process improvement. Copyright Ronald J. Leach, 1997, 2009, 2014,