Information Systems Development

This book is divided into four parts. The first part provides an initial discussion of some of the background issues involved in the need for, and development of, a systematic discipline of information systems development. The author discusses the software problem, the project life-cycle, the development of structured analysis, design and programming and relational database systems. The second part discusses the major techniques of contemporary systems development. It describes a tool-kit out of which most the contemporary methodologies have been built. The third part of the book discusses a number of tools designed to aid or enhance the software development process. The present generation of Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools are covered, most notably integrated project support environments and fourth generation languages. The role that knowledge-based systems may have in the development environments of the future is highlighted. In part four, issues relating to the organization of systems development are discussed. That is, how some of the tools and techniques previously covered take their place within a general methodology or philosophy of systems development.
The concluding chapter considers some of the possibilities for the future of information systems development.