Assigned: Feb 1, 2005
Due: Feb 8, 2005
In this assignment your team must develop a preliminary software design for your project. Your team should develop UML class diagrams as a way to structure your preliminary design. Use class models and class diagrams, based on what you've learned in class and what you can read on-line or in supplementary texts on UML. You may use the Dia program (home page and manuals, starting from http://www.lysator.liu.se/~alla/dia/) or another drawing tool of your choice.
A good diagram does not guarantee a good design; you should think through your design elements and write clear textual descriptions of the software components and their relationships. Each class and association should be described with a paragraph or so of text.
Your design may propose to include existing publically available applications or components, so long as they are free or cheap, and run on Linux. This "Make" versus "Buy" decision is prevalent in the real world. If you include external applications or components, give a description of each one, assess its suitability and adaptibility for our purposes, and focus on its public interface: how would it be integrated into the rest of the system. Note that "Buy" sounds easier than "Make" but involves high risk, as last year's teams found out.