Hands-On Software Engineering with Python

Asking questions

There can be as many distinct questions that can be asked about any given chunk of code as there are chunks of code to ask about—even very simple code, living in a complex system, can raise questions in response to questions, and more questions in response to those questions.

If there isn't an obvious starting point, starting with the following really basic questions is a good first step:

• Who will be using the functionality?
• What will they be doing with it?
• When, and where, will they have access to it?
• What problem is it trying to solve? For example, why do they need it?
• How does it have to work? If detail is lacking, breaking this one down into two separate questions is useful:
  • What should happen if it executes successfully? ...