Software Engineering

This book offers an integrated and pragmatic overview of software engineering. Intended as a text for an upper-class undergraduate or first-year graduate course in software engineering, it should be of interest to practitioners as well. It gives students a basic grounding in the process of software development and teaches them how a disciplined application of methods and tools can improve the quality and productivity of projects such as information systems, software tools, and engineering analyses. The material is organized around three themes: software engineering is the discipline of implementing computer-supported solutions to real problems, the software process is one of solving, and all software solutions must be expressed as formal models. Because software engineering is presented as an evolving discipline, current practices are explained in the context of their initial goals and historical setting. As a result, the text focuses not on how things are done, but why they are done that way. All illustrations are drawn from a central case study-the development of a software configuration management system. The book contains exercises and an extended reading list.