Ivar Hjalmar Jacobson (born 1939) is a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

computer scientist and

software engineer 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 ''p ...

, known as major contributor to

UML The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general-purpose, developmental modeling language in the field of software engineering that is intended to provide a standard way to visualize the design of a system. The creation of UML was originally m ...

Objectory Objectory is an object-oriented methodology mostly created by Ivar Jacobson, who has greatly contributed to object-oriented software engineering Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", w ...

Rational Unified Process The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is an iterative software development process framework created by the Rational Software Corporation, a division of IBM since 2003. RUP is not a single concrete prescriptive process, but rather an adaptable proce ...

(RUP),

aspect-oriented software development In computing, aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a programming paradigm that aims to increase modularity by allowing the separation of cross-cutting concerns. It does so by adding behavior to existing code (an advice) ''without'' modifying ...

and Essence.

Biography

Ivar Jacobson was born in

Ystad Ystad (; older da, Ysted) is a town and the seat of Ystad Municipality, in Scania County, Sweden. Ystad had 18,350 inhabitants in 2010. The settlement dates from the 11th century and has become a busy ferryport, local administrative centre, a ...

, Sweden on September 2, 1939. He received his

Master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...

of Electrical Engineering degree at

Chalmers Institute of Technology Chalmers University of Technology ( sv, Chalmers tekniska högskola, often shortened to Chalmers) is a Swedish university located in Gothenburg that conducts research and education in technology and natural sciences at a high international leve ...

in Gothenburg in 1962. After his work at Ericsson, he formalized the language and method he had been working on in his PhD at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1985 on the thesis Language Constructs for Large Real Time Systems. After his master's degree, Jacobson joined Ericsson and worked in R&D on computerized switching systems AKE and

AXE An axe ( sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has ma ...

including PLEX. After his PhD thesis in April 1987, he started Objective Systems with Ericsson as a major customer. A majority stake of the company was acquired by Ericsson in 1991, and the company was renamed

Objectory AB Objectory Systems was a software company based in Sweden that was instrumental in the development of Object-oriented program design. Founded in 1987 by Ivar Jacobson, the company developed Objectory, an object-oriented development method which was ...

. Jacobson developed the software method Object-Oriented Software Engineering (OOSE) published 1992, which was a simplified version of the commercial software process Objectory (short for Object Factory). In October, 1995, Ericsson divested Objectory to

Rational Software Rational Machines is an enterprise founded by Paul Levy and Mike Devlin in 1981 to provide tools to expand the use of modern software engineering practices, particularly explicit modular architecture and iterative development. It changed its ...

and Jacobson started working with

Grady Booch Grady Booch (born February 27, 1955) is an American software engineer, best known for developing the Unified Modeling Language (UML) with Ivar Jacobson and James Rumbaugh. He is recognized internationally for his innovative work in software archi ...

and

James Rumbaugh James E. Rumbaugh (born August 22, 1947) is an American computer scientist and object-oriented methodologistIBM bought Rational in 2003, Jacobson decided to leave, after he stayed on until May 2004 as an executive technical consultant. In mid-2003 Jacobson formed Ivar Jacobson International (IJI) which operates across three continents with offices in

the UK The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

the US The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, Sweden, Switzerland, China, and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

Work

Ericsson

In 1967 at Ericsson, Jacobson proposed the use of

software component Component-based software engineering (CBSE), also called component-based development (CBD), is a branch of software engineering that emphasizes the separation of concerns with respect to the wide-ranging functionality available throughout a give ...

s in the new generation of

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

controlled

telephone switch telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital syste ...

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informa ...

was developing. In doing this he invented

sequence diagram A sequence diagram or system sequence diagram (SSD) shows process interactions arranged in time sequence in the field of software engineering. It depicts the processes involved and the sequence of messages exchanged between the processes needed ...

s, and developed collaboration diagrams. He also used state transition diagrams to describe the message flows between components. Jacobson saw a need for ''blueprints'' for software development. He was one of the original developers of the

Specification and Design Language Specification and Description Language (SDL) is a specification language targeted at the unambiguous specification and description of the behaviour of reactive and distributed systems. Overview The ITU-T has defined SDL in Recommendations Z.100 t ...

(SDL). In 1976, SDL became a standard in the telecoms industry. At Objectory he also invented

use case In software and systems engineering, the phrase use case is a polyseme with two senses: # A usage scenario for a piece of software; often used in the plural to suggest situations where a piece of software may be useful. # A potential scenario ...

s as a way to specify functional software requirements.

Rational Software

At Rational, Jacobson and his friends,

and

James Rumbaugh James E. Rumbaugh (born August 22, 1947) is an American computer scientist and object-oriented methodologistUML The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general-purpose, developmental modeling language in the field of software engineering that is intended to provide a standard way to visualize the design of a system. The creation of UML was originally m ...

and his Objectory Process evolved to become the

under the leadership of Philippe Kruchten.

Essential Unified Process

In November 2005, Jacobson announced the Essential Unified Process or “EssUP” for short. EssUP was a new “Practice”-centric software development process derived from established software development practices. It integrated practices sourced from three different process camps: the unified process camp, the agile software development camp and the process improvement camp. Each one of them contributed different capabilities: structure, agility and process improvement. Ivar has described EssUP as a "super light and agile" RUP. IJI have integrated EssUP into

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

Visual Studio Team System Azure DevOps Server (formerly Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Visual Studio Team System (VSTS)) is a Microsoft product that provides version control (either with Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) or Git), reporting, requirements management ...

and Eclipse.

EssWork

Standing on the experience of EssUP Ivar and his team, in particular Ian Spence and Pan Wei Ng, developed EssWork starting in 2006. EssWork is a framework for working with methods. It is based on a kernel of universal elements always prevalent in software development endeavors. On top of the kernel some fifteen practices have been defined. A team can create their own method by composing practices.

SEMAT and Essence

In November 2009, Jacobson,

Bertrand Meyer Bertrand Meyer (; ; born 21 November 1950) is a French academic, author, and consultant in the field of computer languages. He created the Eiffel programming language and the idea of design by contract. Education and academic career Meyer rece ...

and

Richard Soley Richard Mark Soley (born c. 1960, in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American computer scientist and businessman, and chairman and CEO of the Object Management Group, Inc. (OMG). He is also executive director of the Cloud Standards Customer Council, ...

("the Troika") started an initiative called SEMAT (Software Engineering Method and Theory) to seek to develop a rigorous, theoretically basis for software engineering practice, and to promote its wide adoption by industry and academia. SEMAT has been inspired by the work at IJI, but with a fresh new start. It has resulted in Essence, which is an OMG standard since November 2014. Essence views methods as a combination of software engineering and development practices. It aims to enable the abstraction of practices from the methods, thus facilitating their reuse and combination for tailoring methods as best suits the needs.

Publications

Jacobson has published several books and articles, a selection: * 1992. ''Object-Oriented Software Engineering: A Use Case Driven Approach (ACM Press)'' With Magnus Christerson, Patrik Jonsson & Gunnar Overgaard. Addison-Wesley, 1992, * 1994. ''The Object Advantage: Business Process Reengineering With Object Technology (ACM Press)''. With M. Ericsson & A. Jacobson. Addison-Wesley, * 1997. ''Software Reuse: Architecture, Process, and Organization for Business Success (ACM Press)''. With Martin Griss & Patrik Jonsson. Addison-Wesley, 1997, * 1999. ''The Unified Software Development Process''. With

James Rumbaugh James E. Rumbaugh (born August 22, 1947) is an American computer scientist and object-oriented methodologistGrady Booch Grady Booch (born February 27, 1955) is an American software engineer, best known for developing the Unified Modeling Language (UML) with Ivar Jacobson and James Rumbaugh. He is recognized internationally for his innovative work in software archi ...

James Rumbaugh James E. Rumbaugh (born August 22, 1947) is an American computer scientist and object-oriented methodologist

References

External links

Ivar Jacobson International

Ivar Jacobson's Blog

EssWork Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacobson, Ivar 1939 births Living people People from Ystad Municipality KTH Royal Institute of Technology alumni Software engineers Swedish computer scientists Unified Modeling Language Ericsson people Chalmers University of Technology alumni 20th-century Swedish inventors People from Ystad 21st-century Swedish inventors