This chapter emphasizes the importance of the design and, in general, the early phase of the software development life cycle. Shortcutting the requirements and analysis, design, or prototyping is counterproductive. 2-1 quantifies the benefit. Bugs found early in the software development life cycle are easier to resolve. However, this commitment to the entire life cycle must be embraced by more than the developers; the management also must endorse it. Deadlines should not drive the software development in exclusion of other factors.

You should model the application using UML. Each UML diagram provides a different perspective or insight into the software system. Together all the diagrams present a full picture of the application. You can create UML diagrams using Microsoft Office Visio 2007. After creating the diagram, prototyping with instrumentation can validate some of the dynamic UML diagrams. This confirmation is an important cross check of the object-oriented analysis and design for a software system. You can create class diagrams in Visual Studio that closely represent a UML class diagram. This will automatically create prototypes of each method in the source code. You can then instrument the methods. At the end of this process, you will have a thoughtful, stable, and correct application. Of course, high-quality applications are the collective objective of everyone on the project team.