By bfwebster on May 21, 2012 in Books, IT Project Management, Main, Management, Recruiting, RISE, Software engineering | 1 Comment
[The first of a planned series of posts on "Readings in Software Engineering"] [Version 1.1 of this post, revised/extended on 05/22/2012] The Psychology of Computer Programming, Gerald M. Weinberg, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, 1971. Hardbound, 288 pages. Personal acquisition date: 17 Oct 1978. Original edition out of print. The Psychology of Computer Programming [...]
By bfwebster on May 21, 2012 in Books, IT Project Management, Main, RISE, Software engineering | 4 Comments
I have been collecting and reading books on software engineering since the 1970s, but I have found over the decades that the vast majority of programmers (and their managers) are unfamiliar with most of them. More’s the pity, for during the 38 years since I first started working in information technology (BYU Translation Sciences Institute, [...]
By bfwebster on Oct 5, 2011 in Books, Intellectual property, Main, Technology | 0 Comments
The second personal computer I ever owned[1] was an Apple II, with no floppy drive. I bought it, along with a small color TV, from my close friend Robert Trammel while we were both living in Houston sometime around 1980.We had already spent hours together programming on it, then carefully (though not always successfully) saving [...]
By bfwebster on Jun 23, 2008 in Books, IT Project Management, Main, Management, Pitfalls, PMSE | 0 Comments
[From Pitfalls of Modern Software Engineering by Bruce F. Webster (forthcoming)] Categories: managerial Self delusion and group delusion are all too common in software development projects. Several factors combine to bring this about. One is the natural optimism prevalent among software engineers, particularly when they are not allowed, encouraged, or required to spend sufficient time [...]
By bfwebster on Jun 9, 2008 in Books, Main, Management, Methodology, Pitfalls, PMSE, Quality assurance | 1 Comment
[From Pitfalls of Modern Software Engineering by Bruce F. Webster (forthcoming)] Categories: managerial This is a classic pitfall in software engineering. Typically, insufficient time is allocated for the problem specification, research, design, architecture, and review that should occur before coding and during each development cycle. Likewise, software quality assurance (SQA) is often given little time, [...]