Talk:MIL-STD-498

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Methodologies section[edit]

I will delete this section as unclear content and intent means I cannot try to fix it, there is no cite to try and interpret further, and the source is an ip 195.99.198.190 that seems to leave no way to Talk and nothing less to do. The article text to be deleted is:

Paragraph 4.1, “major activities may overlap, may be applied iteratively, may be applied differently to different elements of software...need not be performed in the order listed.” In terms of methodologies, MIL-STD-498 mitigates against the use of the Waterfall Method in non safety-critical projects, as it is seen to introduce time-based dependencies causing major budget and cost overruns due to its more formal and bureaucratic approach. MIL-STD-498 encourages a more iterative approach to software development which recognizes the fact that requirements change and understanding the design is an evolutionary process.
If there is some rewrite or discusion to follow, fine ... MIL-STD-498 / Methodologies would seem large enough to have books out there, or articles on it -- but this content did not seem to give any meaningful content to the article. Markbassett (talk) 18:23, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have deleted the section. If there is a text out there on methodologies that provides significant method material, I suggest consider adding it to external links or references or See Also instead of starting a topical section. Markbassett (talk) 18:38, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

External links - DIDs[edit]

Theres no talk about the tag, but I'm guessing it refers to the DID list being external links, that they were to a PhD students notes website and that they're all dead links now. Unless someone says otherwise, I think changing them to a reference website (everyspec.com) will fix the deadlinks and so clear the tag.

External links modified[edit]

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The importance of MIL-STD-498[edit]

To all,

As one who was actively working in the US when MIL-STD-498 was introduced, I confirm that it is an important milestone in the history of software development that eventually leads to today's Agile methodologies.

There are other important milestones that I would like to fold in, too. The introduction of Ada. The use of Ada waivers in favor of C++. (After that point, I transitioned to real-time embedded software so I stepped away from mainstream MIL STD SW development.)

I don't know where else in Wikipedia to put these thoughts, and I am putting them here only because there are many people now who did not live through that era: I would like to capture some "lessons learned" for their benefit. I am open to suggestions how best to package this info.

Reptamv (talk) 14:08, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"[...] an effort will select [...] and support efforts?"[edit]

What does that mean? Sorry for my bad English, Google Translate didn't help to understand this part in the Data Item Descriptions section.

195.177.124.234 (talk) 16:55, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Not sure of what the confusion is ... I will try to clarify, but basically there's a menu of 22 possible documents for an effort; any effort makes some selections and lists them in its Contract Requirements Description List. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]


I think the source of the confusion is the archaic or jargonal use of the term "effort" as carried over from the MIL-SPEC context (i.e., someone familiar with the old U.S. military useage of "effort" would naturally use the term when writing the wiki page). You will note that "effort" or any of the subtypes of effort are actually defined in the document, just simply used as is broadly understood.
MIL-STD-489 uses the term "effort" (meaning "an endeavor") where the later, less military software quality standards based on MIL-STD-489 would say "project", "life cycle", "process", activity, etc."
Where MIL-STD-489 says,
"The Software Development Plan (SDP) describes a developer’s plans for conducting a software development effort."
the further developed DO-178B/DO-178C says,
"The Software Development Plan (SDP) is a description of the software development procedures and software life cycle(s) to be used to satisfy the software development process objectives. "
Again, MIL-STD-489 says:
"The developer shall establish, control, and maintain a software engineering environment to perform the software engineering effort."
while DO-178B/DO-178C says:
"Software life cycle environment control ensures that the tools used to produce the software are identified, controlled, and retrievable."
In that section, the phrase "... conducting the system development and support efforts ..." can be easily misread or confusing to those inexperienced with the jargon, and I must admit to wanting clarification for myself. Here, do "system" and "efforts" apply equally to "development and support" as in "system lifecycle processes", or is it meant to read with separation of development and support "system development efforts (specification, design, and coding) and support efforts (planning, verification, configuration management, and quality assurance)."?
I must say, the whole article could use a readability pass. "Unlike previous efforts ..." uses a somewhat different sense of "effort" than the section in question. "It was the baseline that all of the .... related efforts after it replaced." is a stumble block.
IveGoneAway (talk) 19:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

System vs Software[edit]

@Markbassett

My first work with DO-178B was with a number of manufactures who were transitioning from MIL-STD-498 to DO-178B, or with clients that had already made the transition, but retained certain MIL-STD-498 notations. The impression was that DO-178B followed MIL-STD-498, but, in reality DO-178B (1992) preceded MIL-STD-498 (1994). Certainly, the integration of development with quality assurance processes is more mature in the DO-178B.

The earlier text of this page gave more emphasis on system development while in actuality it is a definition of software development assurance: "The term “system,” ... may mean: (1) a hardware-software system ... for which this standard covers only the software portion, or (2) a software system ... for which this standard governs overall development." I attempted to resolve this, but your edits seem to have returned the emphasis on systems rather than software. The bulk of standard is on software development and testing. Yes, all of this is bookended with assuring conformity of the software CSCIs with the system, but system development is largely beyond MIL-STD-498, isn't it?

The interesting distinction appears between 5.4 and 5.5., recognizing a separation between systems and software (cf. ARP4754). Regarding MIL-STD-498:

  • In 5.5 software requirements analysis, the software developer "shall define" the software requirements (and all lower activities).
  • In 5.4 system design, the software developer "shall participate" in the definition of the system design, system architecture, and system requirements.

IveGoneAway (talk) 17:07, 14 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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