CISSE Intermediate Level
Programming and Systems Analysis and Design cheat sheet
Every chapter's key points, formulas and definitions on one page, for the last week before the exam. Each heading links to the chapter that explains it.
Information systems concepts and technology
- An information system combines people, processes, data and technology to collect, process, store and distribute information that supports an organisation's operations and decisions.
- Its five components are hardware, software, data, people and procedures.
- Systems theory treats any system as interrelated components working toward a common purpose; systems thinking looks at how a change to one part ripples through the whole.
- Programming languages are procedural, object-oriented, functional or scripting, and Java, the language this paper teaches, is the object-oriented example.
- A good information system is reliable, usable, secure, maintainable, scalable and cost-effective.
Key terms
- Hardware
- The physical computing equipment.
- Software
- The programs that process data, the subject matter of this paper's programming half.
- Data
- The raw facts the system stores and processes.
- People
- Users, analysts, developers and administrators.
- Procedures
- The documented rules governing how the system is used and operated.
- Systems analyst
- Gathers requirements (see the chapter on requirements elicitation) and translates business needs into a technical specification.
- Systems designer
- Designs the system's architecture, interfaces and data structures (see the chapter on systems design).
- Programmer/developer
- Implements the design in code, the subject of Part B.
- Project manager
- Plans and coordinates the whole effort, echoing CISSE's own dedicated project-management paper.
- End users
- Provide requirements and ultimately use the finished system.
The rest of the sheet covers
- The systems development life cycle (SDLC)
- Requirements elicitation
- Systems analysis
- Systems design
- Systems implementation
- System testing and deployment
- System maintenance
- Other software development methodologies
- Overview of programming techniques and paradigms
- Introduction to the Java programming language
- Object-oriented programming
- Functions and methods
- File input and output
- Exam technique and revision
- Glossary