Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering [Paperback]

Robert Glassis the founder of Computing Trends. He has written more than a dozen books on software engineering and on the lessons of computing failures. Robert is trusted by many as a leading authority on software engineering, especially by those who read his columns inCommunications of the ACMandIEEE Software.Robert also publishes a newsletter,The Software Practitioner,and speaks frequently at software engineering events.

This book is a collection of facts and fallacies about the subject of software engineering.Sounds boring, doesn’t it? A laundry list of facts and fallacies about building software doesn’t sound like the kind of thing you’d like to kick back and spend an hour or two with. But there’s something special about these facts and fallacies. They’re fundamental. And the truth that underlies them is frequently forgotten. In fact, that’s the underlying theme of this book. A lot of what we ought to know about building software we don’t, for one reason or another. And some of what we think we know is just plain wrong.

Who is the we in that previous paragraph? People who build software, of course. We seem to need to learn the same lessons over and over again, lessons that these facts—if remembered—might help us avoid. But by we I also mean people who do research about software. Some researchers get mired so deeply in theory that they miss some fundamentally important facts that might turn their theories upside-down.

So the audience for this book is anyone who’s interested in building software. Professionals, both technologists and their managers. Students. Faculty. Researchers. I think, he said immodestly, that there’s something in this book for all of you.

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