Software Engineering (9th Edition)

Book Preface

Readership

The book is primarily aimed at university and college students taking introductoryand advanced courses in software and systems engineering. Software engineers inthe industry may find the book useful as general reading and as a means of updatingtheir knowledge on topics such as software reuse, architectural design, dependabilityand security, and process improvement. I assume that readers have completed anintroductory programming course and are familiar with programming terminology.

Changes from previous editions

This edition has retained the fundamental material on software engineering that wascovered in previous editions but I have revised and updated all chapters and haveincluded new material on many different topics. The most important changes are:

1. The move from a print-only book to a hybrid print/web book with the web material tightly integrated with the sections in the book. This has allowed me to reduce the number of chapters in the book and to focus on core material in each chapter.

2. Complete restructuring to make it easier to use the book in teaching software engineering. The book now has four rather than eight parts and each part may be used on its own or in combination with other parts as the basis of a software engineering course. The four parts are an introduction to software engineering, dependability and security, advanced software engineering, and software engineering management.

3. Several topics from previous editions are presented more concisely in a single chapter, with extra material moved onto the Web.

4. Additional web chapters, based on chapters from previous editions that I have not included here, are available on the Web.

5. I have updated and revised the content in all chapters. I estimate that between 30% and 40% of the text has been completely rewritten.

6. I have added new chapters on agile software development and embedded systems.

7. As well as these new chapters, there is new material on model-driven engineering, open source development, test-driven development, Reason’s Swiss Cheese model, dependable systems architectures, static analysis and model checking, COTS reuse, software as a service, and agile planning.

8. A new case study on a patient record system for patients who are undergoing treatment for mental health problems has been used in several chapters.

Using the book for teaching

I have designed the book so that it can be used in three different types of softwareengineering courses:

1. General introductory courses in software engineering The first part of the book has been designed explicitly to support a one-semester course in introductory software engineering.

2. Introductory or intermediate courses on specific software engineering topics You can create a range of more advanced courses using the chapters in Parts 2–4. For example, I have taught a course in critical systems engineering using the chapters in Part 2 plus chapters on quality management and configuration management.

3. More advanced courses in specific software engineering topics In this case, the chapters in the book form a foundation for the course. These are then supplemented with further reading that explores the topic in more detail. For example, a course on software reuse could be based around Chapters 16, 17, 18, and 19.

More information about using the book for teaching, including a comparison with previous editions, is available on the book’s website.