Software Fundamentals: Collected Papers by David L. Parnas

Rating:
Summary: There's nothing new under the sun...
Review: The software world is full of "revolutionary" ideas that seem to be periodically rediscovered. Topics such as refactoring, data hiding, and "design for change" have all made recent rounds in the development world. However, most of these concepts have been part of the research literature for decades.

Much of the software development work done today is done by people lacking the requisite fundaments for the job. Very few are capable of assessing the true technical strengths of software products. Most are content to read the glossy sales brochures or shallow write-ups in trade magazines to maintain their knowledge of the state of the art. A careful reading of the collected papers in this volume go a long way towards protecting the reader from the modern snake oil salesmen of the software industry.

This book should be required reading for all software developers who strive to deserve the title "Engineer."