The Purpose of This Book | Professional Software Development(c) Shorter Schedules, Higher Quality Products, More Successful Projects, [... ]reers

Software development can be predictable, controllable, economical, and manageable. Software isn't usually developed that way, but it can be developed that way. This book is about the emerging profession of software engineering and professional software practices that support economical creation of high-quality software.

The essays in this book address questions like these:

What is software engineering?
How does software engineering relate to computer science?
Why isn't regular computer programming good enough?
Why do we need a profession of software engineering?
Why is engineering the best model for a software development profession?
In what ways do effective practices vary from project to project (or company to company), and in what ways are they usually the same?
What can organizations do to support a professional approach to software development?
What can individual software developers do to become full-fledged professionals?
What can the software industry as a whole do to create a true profession of software engineering?