No, it’s not a Mastery topic, that’s my reflection about the last weeks at TC2004, the Mastery topics and the previous studies at Tec. 

This article isn’t about learning complex topics in software modeling or analysis, so we don’t need music to concentrate, but there’s a song for you here. (It would be not nice to have the youtube video and this picture one after the other, I will embed the next song, I promise)

TC2004 is a very interesting course for me, not only because I like computer science, but also because I like how this course is structured. You have to educate yourself; you don’t get the information and knowledge from your teacher. It’s not like any other course I’ve had before. I like it, it prepares you for your life after university. Your boss won’t tell you: „Mr. Snake, I want you to read my Power Point about the new CQC techniques, please read it and prepare for next week’s test.“
If you don’t educate yourself, others will easily outdo you, not because they are more intelligent, but because they know how to educate themselves. 

“ We need to move beyond the idea that an education is something provided for us, and toward the idea that an education is something that we create for ourselves.“
– Stephen Downes

Therefore, I really like this course, also the part with the blog post. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it is really frustrating because of all the other stuff I have to do at Tec. 
Approximately, I need four hours to create a blog post, for the first one even more. You need to search for good sources, but to know which source is good, you need to read multiple ones to understand the topic. After you read maybe five sources, you choose 2-3 you want to work with. Read it, understand it, and build up your frame for the post. What will you focus on, pictures, jokes, music, … . And then write, just write it. 

A great thing is that you don’t have to write formally because you have to be formal in every other course. Be yourself, express yourself in your own language. Don’t be just a pawn who became a queen, because it’s still just a playing piece. Become a player, don’t be the chess piece. Yes, we still have the standard themes for the posts, but we can write them at will. It’s as if Ken tells you which game to play and you play it yourself.

Teachers or people sometimes tell you: „You have to think outside the box“. But most teachers don’t. It’s the same in most courses. Topic, power point, exercise and exam. The teacher tells you what to learn, how to learn it and how to show what you have learned. However, this course is an „Outside of the box“ course. And I’m not saying that to get 100%! I am improving in different ways, not only in terms of software design and analysis, but my English is getting better, I have become more creative and I am practicing creative writing. 

„If it doesn’t challange you, it doesn’t change you“
– Fred DeVito

And having an own blog is a challenge. You think I’m joking? Well then go for it! Try it!

But this is not the only great course I had at Tec. Supply Chain Management (Evodio Kaltenecker) and Cost Accounting (Sonal Sahu) are also very good courses, not only because of the topics, but also the teachers. Probs to you two, from a student perspective, I can say that you are doing a great job. Thank you!
I learned to be more efficient, not to try to provide the best work, but to provide the necessary information in the availible time. This is not what we learn in colleague in Germany, but it is indeed important.

„What did you learn outside of colleague?“
– You (maybe…n…)

Life in Mexico is different compared to life in Germany however, it is quite similar to life in Serbia.

The people are very open and kind. And man … the Mexicans love to party, same as the Serbians. I mean the Germans also like to party, but it’s not comparable. If you like it in Mexico, I dare you to go to Serbia, for the first time maybe Belgrade. You will enjoy it, I promise you!
 Mexico has a very delightful culture. I was in Guanajuato for the Independence Day and it was amazing. Not only the city, but also the people. The town is beautiful, as you can see:

I took this picture from a viewing point, it’s amazing. And the town was full of life, of people on the streets, in the bars and restuarant, everywhere. The kids with their horns where funny, if one kid started hitting the horn, all the others follwed, they gave all they had.

I like the idea of the Independence Day in Mexico, that people come together and honor maybe the most important part of their history.

One more topic is my Spanish … oh lord. My Spanish is still not the best. I use to tell myself: “You have so much to do for lectures, you don’t have enough time!”. The truth is, it’s how I set my priorities and I think this is the best chance I will get to improve it. So, if you are in the same situation, set your priorities the right way, and stop crying like a baby!

To come back to the course content, we had four Mastery topics so far, Software Lifecycle, Unified Processes, Use Cases and Modeling Language and Tools. It is interesting how standardization is taking place, even in Software Modeling and Design. Standardization is not bad, you safe time, money and you have a unification of approaches for Software Modeling. But in some cases:

„Standardization leads to rigidity, and rigidity causes things to break.“
– Bill James.

I think that standardization is a very important and helpful approach, but unique things, should stay unique. Not everything should be standardized.

„But that’s just my humble opinion, very humble opinion!“
– Evodio Kaltenecker

Every topic had his own obstacles. For some, I found a good example to explain it. For others, I could draw some pictures or diagrams to illustrate it. I gave my best in the time I had available and it payed of so far.

 

So, what comes next? Obviously, Mastery Topic 05. I hope you are already hyped!

And all the other topics, I want to keep writing how I wrote the last posts and also this Reflection. We will have a group project, it is about the Course Selection System at Tec, maybe I will write a post about it (if I am not too lazy->prepare for not having a post about the project at my page). The project is linked to the Mastery Topics (M.T.) and we will have to work with our gathered knowledge from the M.T. Aaaaaaah, there is one thing I could change …I could improve on my own jokes, sometimes they are a little bit toooooo childish. Buuuut, actually I like them and it’s my blog, I am the player not the chess piece. So, enjoy it or … don’t enjoy it. 

In Summary, … in summary it’s time for bed guys! And it won’t get any better than this, I guess. I didn’t want to talk about the M.T. so much because you have already read it (@Ken). 
So as always, thank you for sticking around.
See you on my next post. 
-SolidSnake8

What? Two days, two posts? Yes, I have final deliveries next week so I have to do this post and one more.
So concentration on and let’s go.

This topic is all about Modeling Language and Tools.
Let’s start with the Modeling Language. Like with any other language, Modeling Language is all about expressing something. Most of the time when you speak in your native language, you want to express yourself. Modeling Language is used to express the design and construction of structure and models. Therefor you have specific rules. There are two different kinds of Modeling Languages:

Graphical Modeling Language
The graphical language uses diagrams to represent the concept with names and lines, which show the relationships. An example would be the UML diagram made by me and my group last year as part of a group project in which we had to program a coffee machine.

It’s written in germen but it doesn’t matter, this are just names of the classes and methods, could also be method_1():void , method_2():void, … instead of kaffemahlen():void or wasserKochen():void or class_1, class_2, … instead of Tastatur, Display, Kaffemaschineand. The Langauge which you should focus on is UML not german. This UML shows how the main (called Kaffeemaschine) and all other classes interact with each other. A quick explenation of the UML:
-boxes are the classes (Tastatur, Boiler, etc.)
-text in the boxes are either defined variables (e.g. einheit10:int) or methods of the class (e.g. kaffemahlen():void)
-the arrow indicates the direction of the relationship between the classes
-numbers appear at the end of relationship lines to indicate a cardinality restrictionIt’s

Textual Modeling Languages:
The textual language uses standardized keywords accompanied by parameters or natural language terms and phrases to make computer-interpretable expressions. It could be something like:

-Mastery04 <is a topic of> TC2004
or
-the right blog to be <is owned by> SolidSnake8
or if you take a look at the UML
-einheit100 <is a defined variable in the class> Muenzeinheit.

HALF TIME! So, Modeling Tools are next.
After creating a diagram with a Graphical Modeling Language, you have to create a database structure from this diagrams. Therefore, you have Modeling Tools, which offer features like creation of data structure from diagrams, forward and reverse engineering, import and export facility, documentation, support for multiple databases, reporting etc. But you cannot use every tool for every operating system. Obviously, most of the Tools support Windows, but there are tools for Mac and Linux.
Some Tools are Power Designer (from SAP) used for Windows, Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler (from Oraclehttps://www.oracle.com/index.html) used for different operating system and ER/Studio (from IDERA) used for Windows. I will give you an example:

This is how the Modeling Tool from Oracle looks like.

This tool is perfect for small, medium, and large sized companies. It is a graphical tool and is available for free. It will help you to create, browse, and update different data models. It has forward and reverse engineering capabilities. You can use this data modeler in the cloud or in a traditional way.
Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler has some features:

• It supports working with logical, relational, physical, multi-dimensional, and data type models.
• Reverse engineering.
• It allows you to do free diagram nesting, which means you can link diagrams from different models together.
• Support for reporting repository.
• Generating reports.

It doesn’t get any better than this!
Thank you for making it to that point, I hope you did not fall asleep, this one was dry, but time is ticking!
And let me know how you liked that song! Thank you for sticking around.
See you on my next post.
-SolidSnake8

Welcome Stranger! 

-The Merchant

This post will be a bit shorter than the other (as you know I am still a topic behind), cause we had partials this week and I had to learn and I had … blah blah *some more excuses * blah.
So, let’s get stared!
Sorry, sorry, I forgot to ask you if you’re alreasy hyped? You already know what follows …

I think Ken missed the music in my last post, so here you have a very delightful piece.

The next topic of the TC2004 course is … wait what? You don’t know what TC2004 is? There is a very good explanation.
Back the the topic of this post, Use Cases:

A Use Case is a software and system engineering term that describes how a user (everyone who uses the system) uses a system to accomplish a particular goal. Therefore, use cases act as a software modeling technique that defines the features to be implemented.
The system could be e.g. a software. So it shows WHO will use the software (this element of the use cases are called ACTORS), the functional requirements for each interaction between actor and SYSTEM and the GOAL a user wants to fulfill by using the system.
These are the three basic elements of a Use case, actor, system and goal. But what does a use case look like?
I will show you!

Let’s take an easy example: Online flight booking system.
So, who are the actors? Well the booker and the airline.
What are the goals? The booker wants to book the flight, to manage the flight and to manage his profile. The airline wants to provide the flight data. The system would be the website. So, the Use Case would look like this:

As you can see, we have the actors, the system and their goals in one simple picture. That’s all Use Cases are about, to visualize which actor has which requirements for the system to fulfill his goal. You could say it shows the relationship between the software or the system and the shareholder, who are going to use the system.

You’ve made it again! I hope you know what Use Cases are now and how they look. I also hope that you liked the music piece, it’s one of my favorites to listen while I study. Thank you for sticking around.
See you on my next post.
-SolidSnake8

Hello you… informatics… affine … … person. Welcome to Mastery02: Unified Process. As you already know (because you read all of my posts), this post is about Analysis and Modeling of Software Systems or TC2004.

I am happy to welcome you to the latest post about the not so latest Mastery topic (we are already at Mastery 03 so I am a topic behind, to be fair, everybody said that studying in Mexico is easy, much easier than in my home country… trust me, it’s not!) about (obviously) Unified Process.

Already hyped? Yes? No? Well… you already now.

The Unified Process is an iterative and incremental software development process framework.

Further, it is a framework, which is extensible and customized for specific organizations or projects.

„What is a Framework? „

-You & me before I read about it

Well, imagine you want to build a house. What do you start with? Yes, the foundation but also the framework, right? And that’s what the Unified Process is, it’s the skeletal structure of the software you are going to build, that’s why the Unified process (UP) is architecture centric and use-case driven. A more specific explanation is that a framework provides a code (e.g. CC+ or Java) that shows/knows what to do, but not how to do it. In java the framework would have the classes, the methods, etc., with comments about what the function of that class or method is, but there would be no actual code in the methods or classes. No knowledge about Java? No problemo, imagine you want to prepare a meal, but you only have a list of ingredients, not a real recipe. This would be your “framework “. 

The UP can be applied to different software systems, with different levels of technical and managerial complexity. Furthermore, it divides the development process into four phases and defines what actions are taking place in what phase:

– Inception (with communication & planning) 
 – Elaboration (with planning & modeling)
  – Conception (with construction)
 – Transition (with deployment & construction)

This diagram shows the four phases (Inception, Elaboration, Construction, Transition and Production) above and the actions (Requirements, Analysis, Design, Implementation, Test and Support) on the left (sry for my crucial handwriting). The bars illustrate how deep the integration of the action is in the phase. The higher the bars, the higher the integration.

So, let’s come to “The Three Amigos”. Sound interesting, like the three amigos El Mariachi, Lorenzo and Fidelo. But this is not about guitars which fire bullets and rocket, it’s about TC2004. So in this case the three amigos are  Grady Booch, Ivar Jacobson and James Rumbaugh.

What? You don’t know these guys (Ken I think you know them)? Well, me neither so I liked their wikipedia entry for you. These three guys agreed on a unified notation system and build the UML (Unified Modeling Language). The standardization and further development of the language was transferred to the Object Management Group (OMG). With a common language, a common object-oriented method could now be developed.  The Unified Process was developed and published parallel to the Unified Modelling Language by „The Three Amigos“.

The UP has different implementations and variations, the most common one ist he RUP (Rational unfified process), but there are more:
–AUP (Agile Unified Process) 
–OpenUP (Open Unified Process)
–BUP (Basic Unified Process)
–OUM (Oracle Unified Method)
and more.
They vary from each other in how they categorize the project actions or workflows.

You have done it! So,  you’ re either Ken who has to read this post so he can give me a grade *cough* I hope I get two points for this *cough*. If your not Ken, well, thank you mom for reading my post, I love you! Jokes aside!
Thank you very much for sticking around.
See you on my next post!
-SolidSnake8

I wanted to post a picture about lifecyle but there were so many, I just couldn’t decide. But make sure yourself.

What is this post about?
What is Mastery01?
What does TC2004 mean?

I hope you did not expect an interesting post like Hank Moody’s:
„Hell-A Magazine blog number 1. Hank hates you all. A few things I’ve learned on my travels through this crazy little thing called life…„
Even if I would write a post like this, my prof would not give me the points I need for this course. Maybe, he would laugh at it, so it would be kind of worth it, but you would learn nothing about the topic of this course, which is:
„Analysis and Modeling of Software Systems“ (TC2004).

So the other two questions… what is Mastery01 and what is this post about?
Mastery01 is the first topic of the course TC2004, which is Software lifecycle and this POST is about Mastery01 (what a plot!).
If you are still here, reading this post, you are kind of interested aren’t you ? Kind of? Just a little bit? No?
Doesn’t really matter, I have to write it anyway…
Sooo let’s get started.

Wait, Wait, Wait… before I start with the theory, I want to offer you some music because I like to listen to calm music while I read, write or learn. So if you want to, just click on „music“. But seriously now! Let’s get started.

To talk about Software lifecycle, we have to understand what a Software lifecycle is.
A Software lifecycle describes all activities in a software development project from the beginning to the end, which is called End of Life (EoL). Sounds kind of sad right?
EoL is the last phase in a Software lifecycle, but not the only one. There are different lifecycle models with different phases, which I will talk about later. But the basic phases are :
Requirements Gathering and Analysis
-where fundamental decisions regarding the basic project are made
Defining Requirements
-document and product requirements are defined and approved by the customer or market analysts (kind of obvious, especially the part „requirements are defined“)
Designing the Product Architecture
-designing the communication and data flow representation of the product
Developing the Product
-actual develop of the products starts and the programming begins
Testing
-units are tested for any faults and failures
Deployment in the Market and Maintenance
-once the product passed all tests, it can be released in the market
-after releasing, the maintenance is done for the existing customer base.

Well, now you know the basic phases of a Software lifecycle, but how long is such a Software Lifecycle?
The answer to that question, is one you won’t get often in life: „It depends“. Ha…ha… kind of.
Some examples for Software lifecycles:
MOCAS is a program used by the DCMA and was developed in 1958. It’s still in use and:

„The data this program is handling, is worth $1.2 trillion.“

-Pal Kienitz about MOCAS

The opposite of MOCAS is the EoL of Windows 98, which was officially in June 2006. As you can see, it really depends on aspects like the dependency of the users, competition, Software Development Lifecycle Models and more. What are Software Development Lifecycle Models? I mean … I can’t just write it down and expect you to know it right? OK then, an other boring description for you!

Software Development Lifecycle Models (SDLC) are different approaches in software development.
There are many models, most of them have similarities like the basic phases. But they also have differences (I mean it would be the same model if not, right?). The activity order (order of the phases) and the duration of activity are different. The most popular SDLC Models are Waterfall Model, V-Model, Spiral Model, Iterative Model and Big Bang Model.

I will not explain every model I mentioned, because I don’t want to write this post for ever! If you find the description of the Waterfall model (following) interesting, feel free to read about the other models on this site.

Why did I show you a picture of a waterfall… well, I have two reasons for that. First one is that I thought that you would like a more colorful post (not true, it’s because I like it) and the second one is that the Waterfall Model and a real waterfall have more similarities than just the name.
The Waterfall Model was the first process model to be introduced (just like in my post). Maybe because of that people tend to say that the Waterfall Model is dead. BUT, the good news is:

„What is dead may never die.“

-The Drowned God

Ok… Ok… you got me… I’m a GoT fan, but let’s focus on your education!
The Waterfall Model has a linear sequential flow, which means that the next phase does not begin until the previous one is completed. That’s how a waterfall in real life works (I told you, it’s not only the name) right? The linear sequential flow is not the only similarity, it is also not possible to go back to an already completed phase. Imagine how a waterfall flows uphill. I mean, for a creative person (like you) or a pirate who wants to enter the Grand Line, it’s noo problemo, but in real life… not applicable.
Do you remember my drivel about the phases?
The following picture shows how the phases of the Waterfall Model are arranged:

So let’s talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the Waterfall Model. It’s simple to use and easy to understand. It’s easy to manage because of the phases, which are completed one at a time and clearly defined. The disadvantages are its poor application for complex and object-oriented projects, also ,it’s difficult to measure the progress within stages and there is no possibility to accommodate changing requirements.

If you have made it to this point, you are either a friend or family member of mine or you have just finished a Netflix series and don’t know what to do now. In both cases, thank you very much for sticking around.
See you on my next post!
-SolidSnake8