szlamany,

That was an excellent article. However, there was one part I did not fully understand and that was the cross domain portion. The fact is I am not clear on exactly what is meant by application domains. That is a term I have not run across before. would that be considered the code residing in one class to another or from one project to another or one platform to another? Knowing that would be very important to some ideas I have about how a set of stand alone applications that are designed to be used as a single multi-purpose application might be approached.

Shaggy/Szlamany,

I would beg to defer. My own belief is that the two of you consider code and code processes to be somehow different from any other process. That is just not the case. The fact is, and has long been known, that a process, is a process, is a process. What that means is that all processes have the same concepts and abide by the same rules. The only thing that can be differentiated in different processes is how one might approach one or the other. I will freely admit that the Design process, when applied to software would not even look the same as that I would have used for designing something like a immunoassay.

While I have never actually put together a Design Control for software development, I have seen several that are known to be quite adequate. In fact the only argument that I have with them (GAMP being the worst but a good example) is that those who have put them together do not have a full understanding of the engineering principles required for a truly robust design system. Now, having said all of that I am retired now and do this for a hobby so I feel no need to apply any, or at least most, of the design principles that have been such a big part of my life. But I assure you, whether you choose to believe it or not, that software/application development is as subject to being treated as a science as anything else.

Again, thanks for the article and if you could give me a little more explanation about the domains that could be very useful to me.