Software Engineering: A Methodical Approach

Book Preface

This book has been compiled with three target groups in mind: The book is best suited for undergraduate students who are pursuing a course in software engineering. Graduate students who are pursuing an introductory course in the subject will also find it useful. Finally, practicing software engineers who need a quick reference on various software engineering methodologies, may also find it useful.

The motivation that drove this work was a desire to provide a concise but comprehensive guide to the discipline of software engineering.  Having worked in the information technology (IT) industry for several years, before making a career switch to academia, and having myself witnessed the struggles of many new entrants to the discipline of software engineering, I have upheld the view for some time that a concise but comprehensive reference in software engineering would be useful to students as well as practitioners in the industry.

These notes have been compiled and tested over several years with outstanding results. They draw on personal experiences gained in industry over the years, as well as the suggestions of various professionals and students. The chapters are organized in a manner that reflects my own approach in lecturing the course, but each chapter may be read on its own merit.

The text has been prepared specifically to meet three objectives: comprehensive coverage, brevity, and relevance.

Comprehensive coverage and brevity often operate as competing goals. In order to achieve both, I have adopted a methodical and pragmatic approach that gets straight to the critical issues for each topic, and avoids unnecessary fluff, while using the question of relevance as the balancing force. Additionally, readers should find the following features quite convenient and reader friendly:

• Short paragraphs that express the salient aspects of the subject matter being discussed
• Bullet points or numbers to itemize important things to be remembered
• Diagrams and illustrations to enhance the reader’s understanding
• Overview and summary of each chapter
• Introduction of a number of original software engineering methodologies
• Discussion of solutions to generic software engineering problems in a step-by-step manner
• A chapter with sample examination questions (for the student) and case studies (for the student as well as the inexperienced software engineer )
• Also, my introduction of original methodologies for treating certain software engineering problems should make a useful contribution to already existing literature on the subject. These new methodologies include (but are not confined to) the following: information topology chart (ITC) and user interface topology chart (UITC) in chapters 6 and 11, object/entity specification grid (O/ESG) in chapter 10, extended operation specification (EOS) in chapter 12, and a generic object-naming convention for any software engineering project in chapter 9 and appendix 10.