Extreme Programming - Re: DO-178B and XP

Author

Re: DO-178B and XP

Anthony Williams

2004-06-24, 7:00 pm

"Scott Kinney" <sakinney@ix.netcom.com> writes:

> "John Roth" <newsgroups@jhrothjr.com> wrote in message
> news:10djc76ssjib8ef@news.supernews.com...

[snip]
[color=darkred]
> I think that Requirements Coverage relates to mapping the
> stated requirements to the code. I may not word this exactly right,
> but the requirements is that each line of code relates to a specific
> requirement, and that there is no extraneous code.

As I understand it, there are several aspects to Requirements Coverage in
DO-178B:

* Are all the System requirements covered by the High level requirements?
* Are all the High level requirements covered by tests?
* Are all the High level requirements covered by the Low level requirements
and the System Architecture?
* Are all the Low level requirements covered by tests?

>
> Which is why I suggested spending a little more time on
> the auditor's standards and the DERs (who can also
> 'flunk' you if they don't like your process.)

Do you know where I can get more information on this?

Thanks,

Anthony
--
Anthony Williams
Senior Software Engineer, Beran Instruments Ltd.

John Roth

2004-06-24, 7:01 pm

"Anthony Williams" <anthony_w.geo@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:acytqskw.fsf@yahoo.com...
> "Scott Kinney" <sakinney@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>
>
> [snip]
>
>
> As I understand it, there are several aspects to Requirements Coverage in
> DO-178B:
>
> * Are all the System requirements covered by the High level requirements?
> * Are all the High level requirements covered by tests?
> * Are all the High level requirements covered by the Low level
requirements
> and the System Architecture?
> * Are all the Low level requirements covered by tests?

I think this is pretty clear. In XP terms, the tests that they are
talking about here would be the Executable Acceptance Tests.
The only thing that might be an issue is the "System Architecture"
point. XP is very heavy on emergent design and tries to let the
architecture evolve as well - something that may not be possible
in all contexts.

I'd think you've got a good deal of work to get to the Executable
Acceptance Tests in a fashion that will satisfy the auditors
(not to mention the passengers of the aircraft!). Once you're
there, though, the rest of it should be pretty standard XP with
the additions that a number of people have done to handle
requirements traceability.

John Roth

> Thanks
>
> Anthony
> --
> Anthony Williams
> Senior Software Engineer, Beran Instruments Ltd.

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