As usual, everything is cloudy until some context or sample is given. For this matter I would like to add some simple but complete problems to solve.

Basic UI

Case 1

I’ll use various examples with progressive complexity, let’s start with the simplest one with just One Entity.

Consider a simple entity with 2 attributes.

  catalogue { code, description }
  

Functional requirements include at least

• Create Catalogue
• Search/find Catalogue
• View Catalogue details
• Modify Catalogue details
• Remove Catalogue

This is just minimal functional requirements but as is there is no point to code this unless there is some behaviour associated. Let’s add a statemachine to Catalogue.

  enum  catalogueStatus { DRAFT, PUBLISHED, HIDDEN;
    DRAFT -> PUBLISHED ["publish"]
    PUBLISHED -> HIDDEN ["hide"]
    HIDDEN -> PUBLISHED ["publish"]
  }
  
  catalogue { code, description, status : catalogueStatus }
  

Now functinal requirements must include transitioning between states of said statemachine.

• Publish Catalogue
• Hide Catalogue

Case 2

Consider two entities in master detail arrangement.

  package (1 -> 1-*) item

Suppose both have very simple attributes consisting of only code and description.

  package { code, description }
  
  item { code, description }

  package (1 -> 1-*) item

Functional requirements include at least

• Create Package
• View Package details
• Modify Package details
• Add Item to Package
• View Item details
• Modify Item details
• Remove Item from Package (deleting such item as a side effect)
• Delete Package (deleting items as a side effect)

Nothing out of ordinary I would think but if you translate this to current JEE practices code metrics would be around 4 kloc Java and possibly 8 kloc xml/xhtml; not very nice and still we are still missing non functional requirements.

Case 3

Lets consider a N to M relationship with a join class/table

  artifact
    
  server
  
  enum deploymentStatus {
    SCHEDULLED, DEPLOYED, REMOVED, CANCELED;
    SCHEDULLED -> DEPLOYED -> REMOVED;
    SCHEDULLED -> CANCELED;
  }
  
  deployment { date , status : deploymentStatus }
  
  artifact ( 1 -> n ) deployment
  
  server ( 1 -> m ) deployment

Now our user interface is getting a little complicated.

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