Software Engineering

The discipline of Software Engineering was founded when it was discovered that large numbers of software projects

• exceeded their budgets
• were late
• were riddled with errors and
• did not satisfy their users' needs.

The term is believed to have been coined by a NATO study group in 1967. The first software engineering conference was the NATO Software Engineering Conference held in Garmisch, Germany in 1968.

Software Engineering References

One of the classic early texts is Boehm's book:
B.J. Boehm, "Software Engineering Economics", Prentice-Hall, 1981

The Risks Forum

A continuing saga of problems with software system is chronicled in the "Risks" section of ACM journal, "Software Engineering Notes". The Risks section has appeared in every issue for more than ten years, i.e. there has been no shortage of material to keep it alive for all that time!

Notes

Clever programming

Be the end of this course, you should understand that hacking is far from clever: there are much more effective strategies for making programs run faster!