Social Software Engineering

Although the precepts of software engineering have been around for decades, the field has failed to keep pace with rapid advancements in computer hardware and software. Modern systems that integrate multiple platforms and architectures, along with the collaborative nature of users who expect an instantaneous global reach via the Internet, require updated software engineering methods. Social Software Engineering: Development and Collaboration with Social Networking examines the field through the spectrum of the social activities that now compose it. Supplying an up-to-date look at this ever-evolving field, it provides comprehensive coverage that includes security, legal, and privacy issues in addition to workflow and people issues. Jessica Keyes, former managing director of R&D for the New York Stock Exchange and noted columnist, correspondent, and author with more than 200 articles published, details the methodology needed to bring mission-critical software projects to successful conclusions. She provides readers with the understanding and tools required to fuse psychology, sociology, mathematics, and the principles of knowledge engineering to develop infrastructures capable of supporting the collaborative applications that today’s users require.

“Capers Jones has accumulated the most comprehensive data on every aspect of software engineering, and has performed the most scientific analysis on this data. Now, Capers performs yet another invaluable service to our industry, by documenting, for the first time, its long and fascinating history. Capers’ new book is a must-read for every software engineering student and information technology professional.” — From the Foreword by Tony Salvaggio, CEO and president, Computer Aid, Inc. Software engineering is one of the world’s most exciting and important fields. Now, pioneering practitioner Capers Jones has written the definitive history of this world-changing industry. Drawing on several decades as a leading researcher and innovator, he illuminates the field’s broad sweep of progress and its many eras of invention. He assesses the immense impact of software engineering on society, and previews its even more remarkable future. Decade by decade, Jones examines trends, companies, winners, losers, new technologies, productivity/quality issues, methods, tools, languages, risks, and more. He reviews key inventions, estimates industry growth, and addresses “mysteries” such as why programming languages gain and lose popularity. Inspired by Paul Starr’s Pulitzer Prize–winning The Social Transformation of American Medicine, Jones’ new book is a tour de force—and compelling reading for everyone who wants to understand how software became what it is today. COVERAGE INCLUDES • The human need to compute: from ancient times to the modern era • Foundations of computing: Alan Turing, Konrad Zuse, and World War II • Big business, big defense, big systems: IBM, mainframes, and COBOL • A concise history of minicomputers and microcomputers: the birth of Apple and Microsoft • The PC era: DOS, Windows, and the rise of commercial software • Innovations in writing and managing code: structured development, objects, agile, and more • The birth and explosion of the Internet and the World Wide Web • The growing challenges of legacy system maintenance and support • Emerging innovations, from wearables to intelligent agents to quantum computing • Cybercrime, cyberwarfare, and large-scale software failure

Although the precepts of software engineering have been around for decades, the field has failed to keep pace with rapid advancements in computer hardware and software. Modern systems that integrate multiple platforms and architectures, along with the collaborative nature of users who expect an instantaneous global reach via the Internet, require u

Although the precepts of software engineering have been around for decades, the field has failed to keep pace with rapid advancements in computer hardware and software. Modern systems that integrate multiple platforms and architectures, along with the collaborative nature of users who expect an instantaneous global reach via the Internet, require u.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the International Dagstuhl-Seminar on Empirical Software Engineering, held in Dagstuhl Castle, Germany in June 2006. The 54 revised full papers in this state-of-the-art survey are organized in topical sections on the empirical paradigm, measurement and model building, technology transfer and education, as well as roadmapping.

Collaboration among individuals – from users to developers – is central to modern software engineering. It takes many forms: joint activity to solve common problems, negotiation to resolve conflicts, creation of shared definitions, and both social and technical perspectives impacting all software development activity. The difficulties of collaboration are also well documented. The grand challenge is not only to ensure that developers in a team deliver effectively as individuals, but that the whole team delivers more than just the sum of its parts. The editors of this book have assembled an impressive selection of authors, who have contributed to an authoritative body of work tackling a wide range of issues in the field of collaborative software engineering. The resulting volume is divided into four parts, preceded by a general editorial chapter providing a more detailed review of the domain of collaborative software engineering. Part 1 is on "Characterizing Collaborative Software Engineering", Part 2 examines various "Tools and Techniques", Part 3 addresses organizational issues, and finally Part 4 contains four examples of "Emerging Issues in Collaborative Software Engineering". As a result, this book delivers a comprehensive state-of-the-art overview and empirical results for researchers in academia and industry in areas like software process management, empirical software engineering, and global software development. Practitioners working in this area will also appreciate the detailed descriptions and reports which can often be used as guidelines to improve their daily work.

A collection of essays on the interrelationship of social science and software practice. Software practice--which includes software development, design, and use--needs to go beyond the traditional engineering framework. Drawing on a variety of social theory approaches, this book focuses on interdisciplinary cooperation in software practice. The topics discussed include the facilitation of collaborative software development, communication between developers and users, and the embedding of software systems in organizations.

Today, software engineers need to know not only how to program effectively but also how to develop proper engineering practices to make their codebase sustainable and healthy. This book emphasizes this difference between programming and software engineering. How can software engineers manage a living codebase that evolves and responds to changing requirements and demands over the length of its life? Based on their experience at Google, software engineers Titus Winters and Hyrum Wright, along with technical writer Tom Manshreck, present a candid and insightful look at how some of the world’s leading practitioners construct and maintain software. This book covers Google’s unique engineering culture, processes, and tools and how these aspects contribute to the effectiveness of an engineering organization. You’ll explore three fundamental principles that software organizations should keep in mind when designing, architecting, writing, and maintaining code: How time affects the sustainability of software and how to make your code resilient over time How scale affects the viability of software practices within an engineering organization What trade-offs a typical engineer needs to make when evaluating design and development decisions