25.10
Describe five factors that engineers should take into account during the process of building a release of a large software system.- Competition: A new system release may be necessary because a competing software product has introduced new features, and existing customers may choose the competing product if those new features are not provided to them.
- Marketing requirements: The marketing department may have promised new releases on a particular timeline, or it may be necessary to include new features in a system to persuade users to upgrade from an outdated release.
- Platform changes: A new release of your software may be required if the software it runs and depends on (such as an operating system) has a new release.
- Technical quality of the system: Serious system faults that affect numerous users may need to be corrected in a release. Minor faults, however, can be repaired in patches that can be applied to the current release.
- Documentation: Thorough documentation must be provided in each release so that in the event of an issue with any release, you have the ability to recover every component used in that release.