The warnings began more than a decade before the event, but no one paid
much attention. With less than two years to the deadline, the media
picked up the story. Then government officials voiced their concern, busi-
ness and industry leaders committed vast sums of money, and finally, dire warn-
ings of pending catastrophe penetrated the public’s consciousness. Software,
in the guise of the now-infamous Y2K bug, would fail and, as a result, stop the
world as we then knew it.
As we watched and wondered during the waning months of 1999, I couldn’t
help thinking of an unintentionally prophetic paragraph contained on the first
page of the fourth edition of this book. It stated:
Computer software has become a driving force. It is the engine that drives business
decision making. It serves as the basis for modern scientific investigation and engi-
neering problem solving. It is a key factor that differentiates modern products and
services. It is embedded in systems of all kinds: transportation, medical, telecom-
munications, military, industrial processes, entertainment, office products, . . . the
list is almost endless. Software is virtually inescapable in a modern world. And as
we move into the twenty-first century, it will become the driver for new advances in
everything from elementary education to genetic engineering.
In the five years since the fourth edition of this book was written, the role of soft-
ware as the “driving force” has become even more obvious. A software-driven Inter-
net has spawned its own $500 billion economy. In the euphoria created by the promise
of a new economic paradigm, Wall Street investors gave tiny “dot-com” companies
billion dollar valuations before these start-ups produced a dollar in sales. New
software-driven industries have arisen and old ones that have not adapted to the new
driving force are now threatened with extinction. The United States government has
litigated against the software’s industry’s largest company, just as it did in earlier eras
when it moved to stop monopolistic practices in the oil and steel industries.
Software’s impact on our society and culture continues to be profound. As its
importance grows, the software community continually attempts to develop tech-
nologies that will make it easier, faster, and less expensive to build high-quality com-
puter programs. Some of these technologies are targeted at a specific application
domain (e.g., Web-site design and implementation); others focus on a technology
domain (e.g., object-oriented systems); and still others are broad-based (e.g., oper-
ating systems such as LINUX). However, we have yet to develop a software technol-
ogy that does it all, and the likelihood of one arising in the future is small. And yet,
people bet their jobs, their comfort, their safety, their entertainment, their decisions,
and their very lives on computer software. It better be right.
This book presents a framework that can be used by those who build computer
software—people who must get it right. The technology encompasses a process, a
set of methods, and an array of tools that we call software engineering.
much attention. With less than two years to the deadline, the media
picked up the story. Then government officials voiced their concern, busi-
ness and industry leaders committed vast sums of money, and finally, dire warn-
ings of pending catastrophe penetrated the public’s consciousness. Software,
in the guise of the now-infamous Y2K bug, would fail and, as a result, stop the
world as we then knew it.
As we watched and wondered during the waning months of 1999, I couldn’t
help thinking of an unintentionally prophetic paragraph contained on the first
page of the fourth edition of this book. It stated:
Computer software has become a driving force. It is the engine that drives business
decision making. It serves as the basis for modern scientific investigation and engi-
neering problem solving. It is a key factor that differentiates modern products and
services. It is embedded in systems of all kinds: transportation, medical, telecom-
munications, military, industrial processes, entertainment, office products, . . . the
list is almost endless. Software is virtually inescapable in a modern world. And as
we move into the twenty-first century, it will become the driver for new advances in
everything from elementary education to genetic engineering.
In the five years since the fourth edition of this book was written, the role of soft-
ware as the “driving force” has become even more obvious. A software-driven Inter-
net has spawned its own $500 billion economy. In the euphoria created by the promise
of a new economic paradigm, Wall Street investors gave tiny “dot-com” companies
billion dollar valuations before these start-ups produced a dollar in sales. New
software-driven industries have arisen and old ones that have not adapted to the new
driving force are now threatened with extinction. The United States government has
litigated against the software’s industry’s largest company, just as it did in earlier eras
when it moved to stop monopolistic practices in the oil and steel industries.
Software’s impact on our society and culture continues to be profound. As its
importance grows, the software community continually attempts to develop tech-
nologies that will make it easier, faster, and less expensive to build high-quality com-
puter programs. Some of these technologies are targeted at a specific application
domain (e.g., Web-site design and implementation); others focus on a technology
domain (e.g., object-oriented systems); and still others are broad-based (e.g., oper-
ating systems such as LINUX). However, we have yet to develop a software technol-
ogy that does it all, and the likelihood of one arising in the future is small. And yet,
people bet their jobs, their comfort, their safety, their entertainment, their decisions,
and their very lives on computer software. It better be right.
This book presents a framework that can be used by those who build computer
software—people who must get it right. The technology encompasses a process, a
set of methods, and an array of tools that we call software engineering.
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