Marvin V. Zelkowitz - Böcker

This is a compilation of papers submitted by participants of a workshop organized to consider the requirments for a software engineering environment - a programming environment that aids the professional programmer in completion of the tasks necessary to build and maintain large complex software systems. The goal of the workshop was to consider the requirement for such an environment by examining the contributions that could be made by recent advances in technology in a variety of computer science areas including methodology, system architecture, measurement and evaluation, artificial intelligence, verification, databases, human interfaces and programming languages.

Based on material used by the authors in their teaching, this volume provides a detailed comparison and study of the various methods for reasoning about software. The material offers a comprehensive understanding of which program structures are easier to manipulate by formal techniques, thus allowing professionals to write programs that are easier to reason about informally. The basic technology presented should be of use in all programming environments.

Based on material used by the authors in their teaching, this volume provides a detailed comparison and study of the various methods for reasoning about software. The material offers a comprehensive understanding of which program structures are easier to manipulate by formal techniques, thus allowing professionals to write programs that are easier to reason about informally. The basic technology presented should be of use in all programming environments.

Although software engineering can trace its beginnings to a NATO conf- ence in 1968, it cannot be said to have become an empirical science until the 1970s with the advent of the work of Prof. Victor Robert Basili of the University of Maryland. In addition to the need to engineer software was the need to understand software. Much like other sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and biology, software engineering needed a discipline of obs- vation, theory formation, experimentation, and feedback. By applying the scientific method to the software engineering domain, Basili developed concepts like the Goal-Question-Metric method, the Quality-Improvement- Paradigm, and the Experience Factory to help bring a sense of order to the ad hoc developments so prevalent in the software engineering field. On the occasion of Basili’s 65th birthday, we present this book c- taining reprints of 20 papers that defined much of his work. We divided the 20 papers into 6 sections, each describing a different facet of his work, and asked several individuals to write an introduction to each section. Instead of describing the scope of this book in this preface, we decided to let one of his papers, the keynote paper he gave at the International C- ference on Software Engineering in 1996 in Berlin, Germany to lead off this book. He, better than we, can best describe his views on what is - perimental software engineering.