The IDAR Method of Software Design

Software must be designed. Unfortunately, traditional techniques of object-oriented design have no widely applicable way of providing a structure for designs. Any object may interact with any other object in any way the designer wishes. As a result, designs are often disorganized, leading to delays and poor quality. In fact, one may observe that developers on most projects spend most of their time debugging poorly structured code. The IDAR method of object-oriented design causes each design to form a hierarchy of abstractions (i.e., levels of control), with rules guiding how objects may interact, thus creating a natural organization for the evolving design. The resulting improvement in organization yields several benefits, all of which contribute to the ultimate goals of providing customers with acceptable quality on-time. This book covers the following topics: * The IDAR method itself, along with a detailed process of how to design using this method, * Metrics and guidelines for gauging the quality of designs, * Management concerns, including the little-known problem of fanatics, * Four full-sized example applications that are designed from scratch.