[The third in a series of posts on Readings in Software Engineering. Previous post: The Mythical Man-Month, Frederick J. Brooks Jr. (1975/1995).] Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister, Dorset House Publishing Co., New York, 1987, softbound, 188 pages. Original acquisition date unknown; replacement copy acquired 11 Oct 1995. Current version is […]
[The second in a series of posts on Readings in Software Engineering. Previous post: The Psychology of Computer Programming, Gerald M. Weinberg (1971/1998)] The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA, 1975. Softbound, 195 pages. Personal acquisition date: unknown. Original edition out of print. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays […]
[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 […]
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, […]
Classic patterns in disputed IT project: Hertz v. Accenture
Just ran across this article at the always-irreverent-but-usually-spot-on Register, an IT news site out of England. The standard patterns of a troubled IT project are so evident in this one report that I may well use it as a case study for my CS 428 (“Real-world software engineering”) class this fall. Here are some of […]
Neverending Story pattern: School District ERP system late, over-budget
A story a few days ago caught my eye, not because it was unusual, but because it follows so familiar a pattern. Here are a few excerpts from the article: MANATEE — Late nights, hefty contracts and humming computers are a norm in the district’s School Support Center, where employees are working to fix a […]
Minnesota DMV software project: Faulty Towers/Neverending Story patterns
In my 2000 white paper, “Patterns in IT Litigation: System Failure (1976-2000)” [PDF], which I researched and wrote while at PricewaterhouseCoopers, I describe six broad fact patterns to classify the types of software system implementation failure. One of those patterns I named “Faulty Towers”: The client buys the system from [or has the system developed […]
![The Meltdown/Spectre CPU bugs: a dramatic global case of the “Unintended Consequences” pattern [UPDATED 4/4/18]](http://bfwa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/intel-cpu-150x150.jpg "The Meltdown/Spectre CPU bugs: a dramatic global case of the “Unintended Consequences” pattern [UPDATED 4/4/18]")
Back in 2000, PricewaterhouseCooper published my research white paper, “Patterns in IT Litigation: Systems Failure (1976-2000)” (PDF). This paper reflected research I and my staff had done over several months on roughly 120 two- or three-party lawsuits involving information technology. I found that almost all of these lawsuits fell into one or two of six […]