Great Software Debates

1. Auflage 2004
ISBN: 978-0-471-67523-5
Verlag: Wiley

Buch, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 601 g

The industry’s most outspoken and insightful critic explains how the software industry REALLY works.

In Great Software Debates, Al Davis, shares what he has learned about the difference between the theory and the realities of business and encourages you to question and think about software engineering in ways that will help you succeed where others fail.

In short, provocative essays, Davis fearlessly reveals the truth about process improvement, productivity, software quality, metrics, agile development, requirements documentation, modeling, software marketing and sales, empiricism, start-up financing, software research, requirements triage, software estimation, and entrepreneurship. He will get you thinking about:

- The danger of following trends and becoming a ‘software lemming’
- Is software development art or engineering?
- How to survive management mistakes
- The bizarre world of software estimation
- How to succeed as software entrepreneur
- How to resolve incompatible schedules and requirements

If you are in the software industry and do not know which way to turn, Great Software Debates provides valuable and insightful advice. Whether you are a software developer, software manager, software executive, entrepreneur, requirements writer, architect, designer, or tester, you will find no shortage of sound, palatable advice.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Davis, Alan M

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Programmierung | Softwareentwicklung Software Engineering Objektorientierte Softwareentwicklung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface xi
About the Author xv

Section I: The Software Industry 1

Essay 1. Software Lemmings 3
Essay 2. Recovering from Method Abuse 11
Essay 3. Tomorrow's Blacksmiths 15
Essay 4. On Software Development Strategies, Politics, and Religion 17
Essay 5. Art or Engineering, One More Time 27
Essay 6. Why Build Software? 31
Essay 7. It Feels Like Déjà Vu All Over Again 35
Essay 8. Eras of Software Engineering Technology Transfer 37
Essay 9. Fifteen Principles of Software Engineering 41
Essay 10. Thoughts on Software Estimation 49

Section II: Management 63

Essay 11. Trial By Firing: Saga of a Rookie Manager 65
Essay 12. Can You Survive Your Management Mistakes? 69
Essay 13. Should He Stay or Should He Go? Advice for a Beleaguered Manager 73
Essay 14. The Software Company Machine 77
Essay 15. The Rise and Fall of a Software Startup 81
Essay 16. Anatomy of a Software Startup 99
Essay 17. Information for Decision Makers 107
Essay 18. Some Tips for the Would-Be Entrepreneur 109
Essay 19. Some More Tips for the Would-Be Entrepreneur 111

Section III: Requirements 113

Essay 20. The Harmony in Rechoirments 115
Essay 21. System Phenotypes 119
Essay 22. The Missing Piece of Software Development 125
Essay 23. Object-Oriented Analysis to Object-Oriented Design: An Easy Transition? 129
Essay 24. Achieving Quality in Software Requirements 143
Essay 25. Requirements Management Made Easy 155
Essay 26. Elicitation: How Do the Experts Do It? 163
Essay 27. Requirements Are But a Snapshot in Time 179

Section IV: Software Research and Academe 185

Essay 28. Between Scylla and Charybdis 187
Essay 29. Why Industry Often Says 'No Thanks' to Research 191
Essay 30. Requirements Researchers: Do We Practice What We Preach? 199
Essay 31. From Wonderland to the Real Problem 207
Essay 32. Practitioner, Heal Thyself 215

Section V: Life and Software 219

Essay 33. Words of Wisdom 221
Essay 34. More Words of Wisdom 225
Essay 35. Product Not Process: A Parable 229
Essay 36. Making a Mark on the World 235
Essay 37. Rewards of Taking the Path Less Traveled 239
Essay 38. Miscellaneous Thoughts on Evolution 245

Section VI: The Future 249

Index 255

Über Autor(innen)

ALAN M. DAVIS is a prolific author with over twenty-five years' experience consulting for over 100 major corporations worldwide including Boeing, Cigna Insurance, Federal Express, General Electric and the Software Productivity Consortium. He is currently a professor of information systems at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. He was president of Omni-Vista, Inc., a vice president at BTG, Inc., and a director of R&D at GTE Communication Systems. He was a member of the board of directors for Requisite, Inc., acquired by Rational Software Corporation in 1997, and subsequently acquired by IBM in 2003. He is the author of 201 Principles of Software Development, Software Requirements: Objects, Functions and States, Second Edition, and Just Enough Requirements Management.