Design and Review
The authorization phase of modification development includes an implied feasibility study. Having done that groundwork, the next step is the design of the modification and a thorough review of the design.
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The authorization phase of modification development includes an implied feasibility study. Having done that groundwork, the next step is the design of the modification and a thorough review of the design.
General design of the modification is usually a short process. This statement is true because most modifications to
MICS
are small in nature, even though the impact of the intended change may be great.The most important factor in general design of a
MICS
modification is identifying all the areas that are affected by the change. For example, adding an element to one file of the MICS
database can involve coding a piece of MICS
file exit logic to construct contents of the data element. This coding can in turn involve more record selection and data element verification logic. This coding may also require that more records be passed through the intermediate files, and that the intermediate data sets be resized.The general design of larger projects, such as adding user-written components, requires more effort. Besides the "ripple" effect noted above, an entire spectrum of design must be done. This covers the input data through the output reports and database, and identification of exception conditions.
The general design should be reviewed before detail design takes place. The
Broadcom Support
is able to comment on summaries of such general designs. Also, user involvement at this stage in modification development can be valuable in terms of short-term design refinement and long-term acceptance of MICS
(if user involvement is needed for the change). Detail design of the modification should be done next. Detail design involves, at a minimum:
- Identifying each point in all modules to be modified.
- Producing logic diagrams or pseudocode for each modification point.
Producing a code implementation plan, defining the order in which module modifications have to be made.
- Producing a test plan. This defines what debugging tools are used, what debugging output must be examined to determine if the modification is working, and what checking must be done to determine that the modification is not interfering with normal system operation.