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No Silver Bullet
"No Silver Bullet—Essence and Accident in Software Engineering" is a widely discussed paper on software engineering written by Turing Award winner Fred Brooks in 1986. "No Silver Bullet—Essence and Accident in Software Engineering" Brooks argues that "there is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order of magnitude enfoldimprovement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity." He also states that "we cannot expect ever to see two-fold gains every two years" in software development, as there is in hardware development (Moore's law). Summary Brooks distinguishes between two different types of complexity: accidental complexity and essential complexity. This is related to Aristotle's classification. Accidental complexity relates to problems which engineers create and can fix; for example, the details of writing and optimizing assembly code or the delays caused by batch processing. Essential co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Engineering
Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' programmer'' is sometimes used as a synonym, but may also lack connotations of engineering education or skills. Engineering techniques are used to inform the software development process which involves the definition, implementation, assessment, measurement, management, change, and improvement of the software life cycle process itself. It heavily uses software configuration management which is about systematically controlling changes to the configuration, and maintaining the integrity and traceability of the configuration and code throughout the system life cycle. Modern processes use software versioning. History Beginning in the 1960s, software engineering was seen as its own type of engineering. Additionally, the development of soft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academic Journal Articles
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece. Etymology The word comes from the ''Academy'' in ancient Greece, which derives from the Athenian hero, ''Akademos''. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning. The sacred space, dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, Athena, had formerly been an olive grove, hence the expression "the groves of Academe". In these gardens, the philosopher Plato conversed with followers. Plato developed his sessions into a method of teaching philosophy and in 387 BC, established what is known today as the Old Academy. By extension, ''academia'' has come to mean the accumulation, dev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1986 Documents
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 **Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal enter the European Community, which becomes the European Union in 1993. *January 11 – The Gateway Bridge in Brisbane, Australia, at this time the world's longest prestressed concrete free-cantilever bridge, is opened. *January 13– 24 – South Yemen Civil War. *January 20 – The United Kingdom and France announce plans to construct the Channel Tunnel. *January 24 – The Voyager 2 space probe makes its first encounter with Uranus. *January 25 – Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army Rebel group takes over Uganda after leading a five-year guerrilla war in which up to half a million people are believed to have been killed. They will later use January 26 as the official date to avoid a coincidence of dates with Dictator Idi Amin's 1971 co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IEEE Software
''IEEE Software'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed magazine and scientific journal published by the IEEE Computer Society covering all aspects of software engineering, processes, and practices. Its mission is to be the best source of reliable, useful, peer-reviewed information for leading software practitioners—the developers and managers who want to keep up with rapid technology change. It was established in 1983 and is published by the IEEE Computer Society. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2018 impact factor of 2.945. ''IEEE Software'' received the APEX 2016 Award of Excellence in the “Magazines, Journals & Tabloids — Electronic” category. ''IEEE Software'''s November/December 2016 issue, “The Role of the Software Architect,” won the 2017 Folio Eddies Digital Award in the "Standalone Digital Magazine; Association/Non-Profit (B-to-B) – Standalone Digital Magazine – less than 6 issues" category. ''IEEE Software'' also received an honora ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve McConnell
Steven C. McConnell is an author of software engineering textbooks such as ''Code Complete'', ''Rapid Development'', and ''Software Estimation''. He is cited as an expert in software engineering and project management. Career McConnell graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, minoring in computer science, at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, and a master's degree in software engineering from Seattle University. He then pursued a career in the desktop software industry, working at Microsoft, Boeing, the Russell Investment Group and several other Seattle area firms. At Microsoft, McConnell worked on TrueType as part of Windows 3.1. At Boeing, he worked on a Strategic Defense Initiative project. McConnell published his first book, ''Code Complete'', in 1993. From 1996 to 1998, he was the editor of the "Best Practices" column in the IEEE Software magazine. From 1998 to 2002, he served as the editor-in-chief of the magazine. ''The New York Times'' has quoted Mc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer (magazine)
''Computer'' is an IEEE Computer Society practitioner-oriented magazine issued to all members of the society. It contains peer-reviewed articles, regular columns, and interviews on current computing-related issues. ''Computer'' provides information regarding current research developments, trends, best practices, and changes in the computing profession. Subscriptions of the magazine are provided free of cost to IEEE Computer Society members. ''Computer'' covers all aspects of computer science. Since 2009, it has a digital edition too. The current editor in chief (since 1 January 2020) is Jeff Voas of NIST. Its impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as i ... was 1.94 for 2017, and 3.564 for 2018. The magazine is the recipient of the 2015 APEX Award for Publication Exc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Essential Complexity (numerical Measure Of "structuredness")
Essential complexity is a numerical measure defined by Thomas J. McCabe, Sr., in his highly cited, 1976 paper better known for introducing cyclomatic complexity. McCabe defined essential complexity as the cyclomatic complexity of the reduced CFG (control-flow graph) after iteratively replacing (reducing) all structured programming control structures, i.e. those having a single entry point and a single exit point (for example if-then-else and while loops) with placeholder single statements. McCabe's reduction process is intended to simulate the conceptual replacement of control structures (and actual statements they contain) with subroutine calls, hence the requirement for the control structures to have a single entry and a single exit point. (Nowadays a process like this would fall under the umbrella term of refactoring.) All structured programs evidently have an essential complexity of 1 as defined by McCabe because they can all be iteratively reduced to a single call to a top-le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SOLID (object-oriented Design)
Solid is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and plasma). The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount of kinetic energy. A solid is characterized by structural rigidity and resistance to a force applied to the surface. Unlike a liquid, a solid object does not flow to take on the shape of its container, nor does it expand to fill the entire available volume like a gas. The atoms in a solid are bound to each other, either in a regular geometric lattice (crystalline solids, which include metals and ordinary ice), or irregularly (an amorphous solid such as common window glass). Solids cannot be compressed with little pressure whereas gases can be compressed with little pressure because the molecules in a gas are loosely packed. The branch of physics that deals with solids is called solid-state physics, and is the main branch of condensed matter physics (which also includes liquids). Materials scien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Prototyping
Software prototyping is the activity of creating prototypes of software applications, i.e., incomplete versions of the software program being developed. It is an activity that can occur in software development and is comparable to prototyping as known from other fields, such as mechanical engineering or manufacturing. A prototype typically simulates only a few aspects of, and may be completely different from, the final product. Prototyping has several benefits: the software designer and implementer can get valuable feedback from the users early in the project. The client and the contractor can compare if the software made matches the software specification, according to which the software program is built. It also allows the software engineer some insight into the accuracy of initial project estimates and whether the deadlines and milestones proposed can be successfully met. The degree of completeness and the techniques used in prototyping have been in development and debate si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Software Engineering
The history of software engineering begins in the 1960s. Writing software has evolved into a profession concerned with how best to maximize the quality of software and of how to create it. Quality can refer to how maintainable software is, to its stability, speed, usability, testability, readability, size, cost, security, and number of flaws or "bugs", as well as to less measurable qualities like elegance, conciseness, and customer satisfaction, among many other attributes. How best to create high quality software is a separate and controversial problem covering software design principles, so-called "best practices" for writing code, as well as broader management issues such as optimal team size, process, how best to deliver software on time and as quickly as possible, work-place "culture", hiring practices, and so forth. All this falls under the broad rubric of software engineering. Overview The evolution of software engineering is notable in a number of areas: * Emergence as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wirth's Law
Wirth's law is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. The adage is named after Niklaus Wirth, a computer scientist who discussed it in his 1995 article "A Plea for Lean Software". History Wirth attributed the saying to Martin Reiser, who in the preface to his book on the Oberon System wrote: "The hope is that the progress in hardware will cure all software ills. However, a critical observer may observe that software manages to outgrow hardware in size and sluggishness." Other observers had noted this for some time before; indeed, the trend was becoming obvious as early as 1987. He states two contributing factors to the acceptance of ever-growing software as: "rapidly growing hardware performance" and "customers' ignorance of features that are essential versus nice-to-have". Enhanced user convenience and functionality supposedly justify the increased size of software, but Wirth argues that p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
