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ARRAY Development

DeLiberation™ Extranet -- General Specification

  1. Purpose
  2. Corporate References
  3. General References
  4. Application and Module (General)
  5. Application and Module (Naming Conventions)
  6. Application (Specific)
  7. Module (Specific)
  8. Development Environment and Tools (Specific)

1. Purpose

1.1. The purpose of this document is to define the General Specification (GS) for all software development within ARRAY Development Corporation. 
1.2.  All software developed after August 1, 1997 must conform to this GS unless otherwise stated in the specification for the application or module being developed. Where there is a disagreement between this GS, and the specification for the application or module, the application or module specification shall take precedence providing the disagreement is noted in the module specification. For any other exceptions to be valid, written permission must be obtained from a designated Product Prime within ARRAY. 

2. Corporate References:

References to ARRAY Development (Canada) Inc. in any software or documentation shall be:
2.1. In the first instance the reference shall read: "ARRAY Development (Canada) Inc.".
2.2. In all subsequent instances, the reference shall read: "ARRAY". 
2.3. References to DeLiberation in any software or documentation shall always be DeLiberation™ Extranet. 
2.4. Where the ARRAY corporate logo is required, it shall be a copy of, link to, or reference to: http://www.ARRAYdev.com/graphics/array.gif 
 
2.5. Where the DeLiberation™ Extranet logo is required, it shall be a copy of, link to, or reference to: http://www.ARRAYdev.com/commerce/delibadmin/delib2.gif 
 
2.6. All references to ARRAY's domain shall read: "ARRAYdev.com", i.e. URL references shall read http://www.ARRAYdev.com/ and email addresses shall read firstname.lastname (at) ARRAYdev.com or array (at) ARRAYdev.com . 

3. General References:

3.1. Date: All communications with ARRAY, which reference dates, will conform to ARRAY's standard date format of yyyy-mm-dd. All dates used by applications will conform to the system/user's standard date setup within Microsoft Windows. 
3.2. Time: All communications with ARRAY which reference times will conform to ARRAY's standard time format of HH:MM:SS where HH is hours in 24 hour day time format. All times used by applications will conform to the system/user's standard time setup within Microsoft Windows. 

4. Application and Module (General)

This section applies to integrated applications, standalone applications, and modules which may be used in applications.
4.1 All software, applications, modules, and documentation developed under contract to ARRAY Development (Canada) Inc. are the exclusive property of ARRAY Development (Canada) Inc. 
4.2 All software will be developed for the 32 bit mode Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 environment.
4.3. All software which makes use of electronic mail must use SMTP for the transmission of mail. POP3 should be used for incoming mail
4.4 All software will be written as scripts for Perl 5.X where appropriate. Microsoft Visual C++ version 5.0 should be used where Perl 5.X is not appropriate.
4.5 All software, documentation, and help files will be maintained by ARRAY using a software code management system. 
4.6. The list of application, module, and global variable names which are "in-use" or "reserved" by ARRAY for reference by developers is given on page http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/delibadmin/delib2/in-use.htm.
4.7. A standard Windows NT command line interface and parameter definition which all developers will use to preserve uniformity across ARRAY applications is given on page http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/delibadmin/parametr.htm. 
4.8. All software which requires a user interface shall conform to both the standard Windows NT 4.0 graphical user interface (GUI), and the Windows NT command line interface.
4.9. All basic forms shall be composed of four components:
  • HTML Documentation.
  • Basic HTML Forms.
  • Basic Perl form processing script (might be multi-page).
  • Sample Database.
    • 4.10. All GUI windows must, by default, be 640 X 480 pixels in size, unless the full content of the window can be displayed in a smaller window.
    4.11. All GUI windows must be scalable. When the information viewed exceeds the size of window, scroll bars should be used to control the information visible in the frame.
    4.12. All help files shall conform to standard Windows NT 4.0 help files and libraries.
    4.13. Wherever possible, developers will make use of existing ARRAY code and modules in developing new applications and modules. The developer should request from ARRAY whether there is a source code for existing modules that could be modified for new applications or modules. 
    4.14. Modified modules and applications must be backward compatible to the previous release. Modified modules and applications must pass all tests defined for the previous release, as well as the tests defined to validate the new functionality or expanded requirements of the current/new release. 
    4.15. All applications and modules must be delivered in source, compiled code, and developer build libraries where required. 
    4.16. All help files must be delivered in source, Microsoft help file and help library format.
    4.17. Unless specified in the module specification, all documentation must be provided in standard ASCII format.
    4.18. Each individual source code file, help file, HTML file and ASCII file will contain a commented header with the following information in the order listed below: 
    1. http://www.ARRAYdev.com 
    2. If applicable: Project Name. 
    3. If applicable: Project Version Number. 
    4. Application/Module/Document Name. 
    5. Application/Module/Document brief functional description. 
    6. Application/Module/Document version number. 
    7. Date of release: 
    8. Author: 
    9. Description of release/modification: 
    10. Version number, Date of Release, Author, and description of release/modification shall be maintained in reverse chronological order so that the latest changes appear first in the list. 
    11. The full ARRAY copyright notice as found in URL http://www.ARRAYdev.com/copyright.htm 
    4.19 Each software module, object, subroutine, procedure and function within a source code file should have a header containing: 
    1. Brief functional description
    2. Description of any special algorithms used
    4.20 All software must be delivered with compilation instructions, which will produce an identical result to the delivered compiled code. Verification will be made by ARRAY upon receipt of all code.
    4.21 All software/documentation/help files must contain the version number assigned at the initiation of the project. Developers will append a two digit (.xx) sub release number and increment the sub release number with each transfer of the files to ARRAY. The developer sub release number must be stripped upon official release of the software. 
    4.22 No additional software other than a browser should be required by the user to run these applications.

    5. Application and Module (Naming Conventions):

    5.1. ARRAY will provide the names of the projects and applications, and, on occasion, modules that it requires to be developed. Where items are not so named it will be the responsibility of the developer to create names for applications, modules, functions, procedures, and variables. 
    5.2. It is essential that developers do not use names that conflict with existing module, application, and global variable definition names. Developers must reference ARRAY's list of existing names to ensure that conflicts are not generated. 
    5.3. All names will be generated in accordance with "Hungarian Notation": 
    Brief Description: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q17.8.html 
    Expanded description: http://www.unf.edu/cis/cliff/unix/hungarian.html 
    Sample Implementation: http://www.sandia.gov/GIS/tech/avcsus.htm 
    5.4. All variables will be defined within the source code in alphabetical order by type, and in alphabetical order within types. 

    6. Application (Specific)

    6.1. All applications must include the project name and version number, and the application name and version number in the Help About box. 
    6.2. All applications must include a Registration menu item under the Help box that permits the client to register the application using ARRAY's electronic software distribution control system. Detailed references, registration information, function calls, verification calls, etc. will be defined when a product is selected.
    6.3. All applications must be multi-threaded to support concurrent use. 
    6.4. All applications must be delivered with a suite of tests, results and documentation on how to run the test and reproduce the test results. The test results must reflect conformance to the application requirements. 
    6.5. All applications must be delivered with both Install and Uninstall options through the Installation Wizard. 
    6.6. In the case of a system application, the Uninstall option must completely remove the application, registry keys, files, directories, startup folders, etc. from the client system. 
    6.7. In the case of a user application, the Uninstall option must completely remove references to the application, registry keys, files, directories, startup folders, etc. from the user's environment on the client system. If the user is the only or last user with the application installed, the Uninstall option must completely remove all of the above items from the client system. 
    6.8. System applications will enter options in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ARRAY\ProjectName\Version\ApplicationName\Version. 
    6.9. Initial installation of a system application must, wherever possible, absorb all system and user options as defaults during the installation process. For example, if an application has a printer setup, during installation it will set the application printer options to the Windows default printer options. 
    6.10. User applications will enter options in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ARRAY\ProjectName\Version\ApplicationName\Version. 
    6.11. In both system and user applications, upgrade installations to an application will "absorb" the options currently set in the previous version of the application. 
    6.12. All applications will be built with allowance for ARRAY's electronic software distribution control system. Detailed references, function calls, verification calls, etc. will be defined when a product is selected. 
    6.13. All Installation procedures will be designed to incorporate a registration process for validation by ARRAY's electronic software distribution control system. Detailed references, registration information, function calls, verification calls, etc. will be defined when a product is selected. 
    6.14 An Installation Wizard must be provided to perform the initial software installation of the module
    6.15 The module must be fully operational once the System Administrator has run the installation wizard.
    6.16 Every time a user incurs an application error, an email message will be passed to the the person responsible for maintaining the application. The email address will be application-maintenance@client.com, unless otherwise specified.
    6.17 The background colour for each HTML page used by the application will by "#FFFFFF".
    6.18 The background colour of each input form used by the application will be "#FFFFEC".
    6.19 Each application will have a questionnaire that prompts the user for feedback on the quality and usefulness of the application.
     

    7. Module (Specific)

    7.1. All modules must be re-entrant.
    7.2. All modules that perform data conversion must validate the input data before conversion and, on validation failure, return a specific error code indicating the data was invalid. 
    7.3. All modules must be accompanied by documentation declaring the parameters to be passed, the type of data to be passed, the resultant data to be returned, and a complete list of error codes that could be returned. 
    7.4. All module source code must include a separate header file, or a reference to header file(s), where data types of parameters, returned data and error return codes are defined (example). 
     

    8. Development Environment and Tools (Specific)

    8.1. Windows NT 4.0 - Service Pack 3 operating system. 
    8.2. Microsoft IIS 4.0 - NT Option Pack 4 web server. 
    8.3. Microsoft Access 97 Database or Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 or greater. 
    8.4. Microsoft ODBC drivers for the above database and operating system. 
    8.5. Network access to a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server conforming to RFC 821, RFC 1652, and RFC 1891. 
    8.6. Network access to a Domain Name Server (DNS) or service conforming to RFC 1034, and RFC 1035. 
    8.7. Perl script interpreter ActivePerl Build 509, or The Perl Resource Kit for Win32 with the Perl Resource Kit Service Pack 1 installed and using the PerlIS.DLL library with the web server. 
    8.8. Java Script functional with the above web server. 
    8.9. Any mainstream Listserver which runs under the above operating system. 
    8.10. Any text editor which runs under the above operating system.
    A text editor with HTML, Perl, and JavaScript syntax highlighting would be beneficial. 
     

    Please contact us using email (preferred), fax or by phone, to:
    array (at) ARRAYdev.com
    Phone: (613)733-0399
    Fax: (613)248-4819

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