What is the most important difference between generic software product development and custom software development? What might this mean in practice for users of generic software products?
What will be an ideal response?
The essential difference is that in generic software product development, the
specification is owned by the product developer. For custom product development,
the specification is owned and controlled by the customer. The implications of this
are significant – the developer can quickly decide to change the specification in
response to some external change (e.g. a competing product) but, when the
customer owns the specification, changes have to be negotiated between the
customer and the developer and may have contractual implications.
For users of generic products, this means they have no control over the
software specification so cannot control the evolution of the product. The developer
may decide to include/exclude features and change the user interface. This could
have implications for the user’s business processes and add extra training costs
when new versions of the system are installed. It also may limit the customer’s
flexibility to change their own business processes.
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Answer the following statements true (T) or false (F)
1) A recursive function is a function whose definition contains a call to the function being defined 2) A design technique is to break a problem into smaller tasks, with the prospect that a smaller problem will be easier to solve. If the smaller task is the identical to the original task excepting only that the size is smaller, the problem may be solved using a recursive algorithm, and implemented with a recursive function. 3) It is proper for a recursion to run on without ending. 4) A proper recursive solution requires at least two cases: a recursive function that calls the recursive function with a smaller problem, and a base, or stopping case.