Robert L. (Bob) Glass (born 1932) is an American software engineer and writer, known for his works on software engineering, especially on the measuring of the quality of

software design Software design is the process by which an agent creates a specification of a software artifact intended to accomplish goals, using a set of primitive components and subject to constraints. Software design may refer to either "all the activity ...

and his studies of the state of the art of software engineering research.

Biography

Glass held his first job in computing in 1954. He worked from 1954 to 1957 in the aerospace industry at

North American Aviation North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included: the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F ...

, from 1957 to 1965 at Aerojet-General Corp. and from 1965 to 1982 at

Boeing Company The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

, where he built software tools used by applications specialists. Between 1970 and 1972, Glass had worked on a tools-focused research grant at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

. From 1982 to 1987, he taught in the Software Engineering graduate program at

Seattle University Seattle University (SeattleU) is a private Jesuit university in Seattle, Washington. Seattle University is the largest independent university in the Northwestern United States, with over 7,500 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate prog ...

, and subsequently spent a year at the

Software Engineering Institute The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is an American research and development center headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its activities cover cybersecurity, software assurance, software engineering and acquisition, and component capabil ...

. Early 2000s he has been visiting professor at the

Linköping University Linköping University (, LiU) is a public research university based in Linköping, Sweden. Originally established in 1969, it was granted full university status in 1975 and is one of Sweden's largest academic institutions. The university has fou ...

in Sweden and at the

Griffith University Griffith University is a public research university in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. Formally founded in 1971, Griffith opened its doors in 1975, introducing Australia's first degrees in environmental science and Asian s ...

in Queensland, Australia. The Linkoping University awarded him a honorary PhD in 1995. He is the emeritus editor-in-chief of the ''

Journal of Systems and Software The ''Journal of Systems and Software'' is a computer science journal in the area of software systems, established in 1979 and published by Elsevier. Content and scope The journal publishes research papers, state-of-the-art surveys, and practi ...

'' and also writes regular columns for ''

Communications of the ACM ''Communications of the ACM'' is the monthly journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). It was established in 1958, with Saul Rosen as its first managing editor. It is sent to all ACM members. Articles are intended for readers with ...

'' and ''

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 ...

''. In 1995 he was awarded an honorary Ph.D. from Linkoping University of Sweden, and in 1999 he was named a fellow of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

(ACM) professional society. Using the pseudonym Miles Benson, Glass in the 1970's regularly wrote disguised stories of failed computing projects for industry publication

Computerworld ''Computerworld'' (abbreviated as CW) is an ongoing decades old professional publication which in 2014 "went digital." Its audience is information technology (IT) and business technology professionals, and is available via a publication website ...

. After 45 years in the field Glass described himself as "my head is in the academic area of computing, but my heart is in its practice."Attributed to Glass in Joseph Feller (2005, p. 517) Writing in ''IEEE Software'' in 2000, Glass criticized

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

, predicting that it will not reach far, and "will be limited to one or a few cults emerging from a niche culture." Glass's basis for this bold prediction was that open-source software "goes against the grain of everything I know about the software field".

Publications

Glass authored more than 200 papers and 25 books. A selection: * 1977. ''The universal elixir and other computing projects which failed'' * 1978. ''Tales of computing folk : hot dogs and mixed nuts'' * 1979. ''Software reliability guidebook '' * 1979. ''Power of peonage'' * 1980. ''The second coming : more computing projects which failed''. With "Sue deNim". * 1981. ''Software soliloquies'' * 1981. ''Software maintenance guidebook'' * 1983. ''Real-time software'' (edited by) * 1983. ''Computing catastrophes'' (compiled by) * 1988. ''Modern programming practices : a report from industry'' * 1988. ''Software communication skills'' * 1989. ''Software runaways'' * 1990. ''Measuring software design quality''. With David N. Card. * 1991. ''Software conflict : essays on the art and science of software engineering '' * 1992. ''Measuring and motivating maintenance programmers''. With Jerome B. Landsbaum. * 1995. ''Software creativity '' * 1996. ''ISO 9000 approach to building quality software''. With Östen Oskarsson. * 1998. ''In the Beginning: Recollections of Software Pioneers''. Editor. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, California. * 1999. ''Computing calamities : lessons learned from products, projects, and companies that failed''. * 2001. ''ComputingFailure.com : war stories from the electronic revolution'' * 2003. ''Facts and fallacies of software engineering'' * 2006. ''Software Conflict 2.0'' * 2006. ''Software Creativity 2.0'' * 2011. ''The Dark Side of Software Engineering: Evil on Computing Projects''

Notes

References

External links

The Official Robert Glass Web Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Glass, Robert L. 1932 births Living people American software engineers Software engineering researchers Seattle University faculty