Author: Capers Jones
Publisher: Pearson Education
ISBN: 0321903420
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 488
Book Description
Pioneering software engineer Capers Jones has written the first and only definitive history of the entire software engineering industry. Drawing on his extraordinary vantage point as a leading practitioner for several decades, Jones reviews the entire history of IT and software engineering, assesses its impact on society, and previews its future. One decade at a time, Jones assesses emerging trends and companies, winners and losers, new technologies, methods, tools, languages, productivity/quality benchmarks, challenges, risks, professional societies, and more. He quantifies both beneficial and harmful software inventions; accurately estimates the size of both the US and global software industries; and takes on "unexplained mysteries" such as why and how programming languages gain and lose popularity.
The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering
Author: Capers Jones
Publisher: Pearson Education
ISBN: 0321903420
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 488
Book Description
Pioneering software engineer Capers Jones has written the first and only definitive history of the entire software engineering industry. Drawing on his extraordinary vantage point as a leading practitioner for several decades, Jones reviews the entire history of IT and software engineering, assesses its impact on society, and previews its future. One decade at a time, Jones assesses emerging trends and companies, winners and losers, new technologies, methods, tools, languages, productivity/quality benchmarks, challenges, risks, professional societies, and more. He quantifies both beneficial and harmful software inventions; accurately estimates the size of both the US and global software industries; and takes on "unexplained mysteries" such as why and how programming languages gain and lose popularity.
Publisher: Pearson Education
ISBN: 0321903420
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 488
Book Description
Pioneering software engineer Capers Jones has written the first and only definitive history of the entire software engineering industry. Drawing on his extraordinary vantage point as a leading practitioner for several decades, Jones reviews the entire history of IT and software engineering, assesses its impact on society, and previews its future. One decade at a time, Jones assesses emerging trends and companies, winners and losers, new technologies, methods, tools, languages, productivity/quality benchmarks, challenges, risks, professional societies, and more. He quantifies both beneficial and harmful software inventions; accurately estimates the size of both the US and global software industries; and takes on "unexplained mysteries" such as why and how programming languages gain and lose popularity.
Software Design X-Rays
Author: Adam Tornhill
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf
ISBN: 1680505807
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
Are you working on a codebase where cost overruns, death marches, and heroic fights with legacy code monsters are the norm? Battle these adversaries with novel ways to identify and prioritize technical debt, based on behavioral data from how developers work with code. And that's just for starters. Because good code involves social design, as well as technical design, you can find surprising dependencies between people and code to resolve coordination bottlenecks among teams. Best of all, the techniques build on behavioral data that you already have: your version-control system. Join the fight for better code! Use statistics and data science to uncover both problematic code and the behavioral patterns of the developers who build your software. This combination gives you insights you can't get from the code alone. Use these insights to prioritize refactoring needs, measure their effect, find implicit dependencies between different modules, and automatically create knowledge maps of your system based on actual code contributions. In a radical, much-needed change from common practice, guide organizational decisions with objective data by measuring how well your development teams align with the software architecture. Discover a comprehensive set of practical analysis techniques based on version-control data, where each point is illustrated with a case study from a real-world codebase. Because the techniques are language neutral, you can apply them to your own code no matter what programming language you use. Guide organizational decisions with objective data by measuring how well your development teams align with the software architecture. Apply research findings from social psychology to software development, ensuring you get the tools you need to coach your organization towards better code. If you're an experienced programmer, software architect, or technical manager, you'll get a new perspective that will change how you work with code. What You Need: You don't have to install anything to follow along in the book. TThe case studies in the book use well-known open source projects hosted on GitHub. You'll use CodeScene, a free software analysis tool for open source projects, for the case studies. We also discuss alternative tooling options where they exist.
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf
ISBN: 1680505807
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
Are you working on a codebase where cost overruns, death marches, and heroic fights with legacy code monsters are the norm? Battle these adversaries with novel ways to identify and prioritize technical debt, based on behavioral data from how developers work with code. And that's just for starters. Because good code involves social design, as well as technical design, you can find surprising dependencies between people and code to resolve coordination bottlenecks among teams. Best of all, the techniques build on behavioral data that you already have: your version-control system. Join the fight for better code! Use statistics and data science to uncover both problematic code and the behavioral patterns of the developers who build your software. This combination gives you insights you can't get from the code alone. Use these insights to prioritize refactoring needs, measure their effect, find implicit dependencies between different modules, and automatically create knowledge maps of your system based on actual code contributions. In a radical, much-needed change from common practice, guide organizational decisions with objective data by measuring how well your development teams align with the software architecture. Discover a comprehensive set of practical analysis techniques based on version-control data, where each point is illustrated with a case study from a real-world codebase. Because the techniques are language neutral, you can apply them to your own code no matter what programming language you use. Guide organizational decisions with objective data by measuring how well your development teams align with the software architecture. Apply research findings from social psychology to software development, ensuring you get the tools you need to coach your organization towards better code. If you're an experienced programmer, software architect, or technical manager, you'll get a new perspective that will change how you work with code. What You Need: You don't have to install anything to follow along in the book. TThe case studies in the book use well-known open source projects hosted on GitHub. You'll use CodeScene, a free software analysis tool for open source projects, for the case studies. We also discuss alternative tooling options where they exist.
Software
Author: Kim W. Tracy
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool
ISBN: 1450387276
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 358
Book Description
Software history has a deep impact on current software designers, computer scientists, and technologists. System constraints imposed in the past and the designs that responded to them are often unknown or poorly understood by students and practitioners, yet modern software systems often include “old” software and “historical” programming techniques. This work looks at software history through specific software areas to develop student-consumable practices, design principles, lessons learned, and trends useful in current and future software design. It also exposes key areas that are widely used in modern software, yet infrequently taught in computing programs. Written as a textbook, this book uses specific cases from the past and present to explore the impact of software trends and techniques. Building on concepts from the history of science and technology, software history examines such areas as fundamentals, operating systems, programming languages, programming environments, networking, and databases. These topics are covered from their earliest beginnings to their modern variants. There are focused case studies on UNIX, APL, SAGE, GNU Emacs, Autoflow, internet protocols, System R, and others. Extensive problems and suggested projects enable readers to deeply delve into the history of software in areas that interest them most.
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool
ISBN: 1450387276
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 358
Book Description
Software history has a deep impact on current software designers, computer scientists, and technologists. System constraints imposed in the past and the designs that responded to them are often unknown or poorly understood by students and practitioners, yet modern software systems often include “old” software and “historical” programming techniques. This work looks at software history through specific software areas to develop student-consumable practices, design principles, lessons learned, and trends useful in current and future software design. It also exposes key areas that are widely used in modern software, yet infrequently taught in computing programs. Written as a textbook, this book uses specific cases from the past and present to explore the impact of software trends and techniques. Building on concepts from the history of science and technology, software history examines such areas as fundamentals, operating systems, programming languages, programming environments, networking, and databases. These topics are covered from their earliest beginnings to their modern variants. There are focused case studies on UNIX, APL, SAGE, GNU Emacs, Autoflow, internet protocols, System R, and others. Extensive problems and suggested projects enable readers to deeply delve into the history of software in areas that interest them most.
Collaborative Software Engineering
Author: Ivan Mistrík
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642102948
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Book Description
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.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642102948
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Book Description
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.
The Social Design of Technical Systems
Author: Brian Whitworth
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788792964090
Category : Information technology
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Hundreds of millions of people use social technologies like Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube every day, but what makes them work? And what is the next step? The Social Design of Technical Systems explores the path from computing revolution to social evolution. Based on the assumption that it is essential to consider social as well as technological requirements, as we move to create the systems of the future, this book explores the ways in which technology fits, or fails to fit, into the social reality of the modern world. Important performance criteria for social systems, such as fairness, synergy, transparency, order and freedom, are clearly explained for the first time from within a comprehensive systems framework, making this book invaluable for anyone interested in socio-technical systems, especially those planning to build social software. This book reveals the social dilemmas that destroy communities, exposes the myth that computers are smart, analyses social errors like the credit meltdown, proposes online rights standards and suggests community-based business models. If you believe that our future depends on merging social virtue and technology power, you should read this book.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788792964090
Category : Information technology
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Hundreds of millions of people use social technologies like Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube every day, but what makes them work? And what is the next step? The Social Design of Technical Systems explores the path from computing revolution to social evolution. Based on the assumption that it is essential to consider social as well as technological requirements, as we move to create the systems of the future, this book explores the ways in which technology fits, or fails to fit, into the social reality of the modern world. Important performance criteria for social systems, such as fairness, synergy, transparency, order and freedom, are clearly explained for the first time from within a comprehensive systems framework, making this book invaluable for anyone interested in socio-technical systems, especially those planning to build social software. This book reveals the social dilemmas that destroy communities, exposes the myth that computers are smart, analyses social errors like the credit meltdown, proposes online rights standards and suggests community-based business models. If you believe that our future depends on merging social virtue and technology power, you should read this book.
Software Engineering at Google
Author: Titus Winters
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
ISBN: 1492082767
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 602
Book Description
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
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
ISBN: 1492082767
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 602
Book Description
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
Creating a Software Engineering Culture
Author: Karl E. Wiegers
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 0133489299
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 580
Book Description
This is the digital version of the printed book (Copyright © 1996). Written in a remarkably clear style, Creating a Software Engineering Culture presents a comprehensive approach to improving the quality and effectiveness of the software development process. In twenty chapters spread over six parts, Wiegers promotes the tactical changes required to support process improvement and high-quality software development. Throughout the text, Wiegers identifies scores of culture builders and culture killers, and he offers a wealth of references to resources for the software engineer, including seminars, conferences, publications, videos, and on-line information. With case studies on process improvement and software metrics programs and an entire part on action planning (called “What to Do on Monday”), this practical book guides the reader in applying the concepts to real life. Topics include software culture concepts, team behaviors, the five dimensions of a software project, recognizing achievements, optimizing customer involvement, the project champion model, tools for sharing the vision, requirements traceability matrices, the capability maturity model, action planning, testing, inspections, metrics-based project estimation, the cost of quality, and much more! Principles from Part 1 Never let your boss or your customer talk you into doing a bad job. People need to feel the work they do is appreciated. Ongoing education is every team member’s responsibility. Customer involvement is the most critical factor in software quality. Your greatest challenge is sharing the vision of the final product with the customer. Continual improvement of your software development process is both possible and essential. Written software development procedures can help build a shared culture of best practices. Quality is the top priority; long-term productivity is a natural consequence of high quality. Strive to have a peer, rather than a customer, find a defect. A key to software quality is to iterate many times on all development steps except coding: Do this once. Managing bug reports and change requests is essential to controlling quality and maintenance. If you measure what you do, you can learn to do it better. You can’t change everything at once. Identify those changes that will yield the greatest benefits, and begin to implement them next Monday. Do what makes sense; don’t resort to dogma.
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 0133489299
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 580
Book Description
This is the digital version of the printed book (Copyright © 1996). Written in a remarkably clear style, Creating a Software Engineering Culture presents a comprehensive approach to improving the quality and effectiveness of the software development process. In twenty chapters spread over six parts, Wiegers promotes the tactical changes required to support process improvement and high-quality software development. Throughout the text, Wiegers identifies scores of culture builders and culture killers, and he offers a wealth of references to resources for the software engineer, including seminars, conferences, publications, videos, and on-line information. With case studies on process improvement and software metrics programs and an entire part on action planning (called “What to Do on Monday”), this practical book guides the reader in applying the concepts to real life. Topics include software culture concepts, team behaviors, the five dimensions of a software project, recognizing achievements, optimizing customer involvement, the project champion model, tools for sharing the vision, requirements traceability matrices, the capability maturity model, action planning, testing, inspections, metrics-based project estimation, the cost of quality, and much more! Principles from Part 1 Never let your boss or your customer talk you into doing a bad job. People need to feel the work they do is appreciated. Ongoing education is every team member’s responsibility. Customer involvement is the most critical factor in software quality. Your greatest challenge is sharing the vision of the final product with the customer. Continual improvement of your software development process is both possible and essential. Written software development procedures can help build a shared culture of best practices. Quality is the top priority; long-term productivity is a natural consequence of high quality. Strive to have a peer, rather than a customer, find a defect. A key to software quality is to iterate many times on all development steps except coding: Do this once. Managing bug reports and change requests is essential to controlling quality and maintenance. If you measure what you do, you can learn to do it better. You can’t change everything at once. Identify those changes that will yield the greatest benefits, and begin to implement them next Monday. Do what makes sense; don’t resort to dogma.
The Problem with Software
Author: Adam Barr
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262348217
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 317
Book Description
An industry insider explains why there is so much bad software—and why academia doesn't teach programmers what industry wants them to know. Why is software so prone to bugs? So vulnerable to viruses? Why are software products so often delayed, or even canceled? Is software development really hard, or are software developers just not that good at it? In The Problem with Software, Adam Barr examines the proliferation of bad software, explains what causes it, and offers some suggestions on how to improve the situation. For one thing, Barr points out, academia doesn't teach programmers what they actually need to know to do their jobs: how to work in a team to create code that works reliably and can be maintained by somebody other than the original authors. As the size and complexity of commercial software have grown, the gap between academic computer science and industry has widened. It's an open secret that there is little engineering in software engineering, which continues to rely not on codified scientific knowledge but on intuition and experience. Barr, who worked as a programmer for more than twenty years, describes how the industry has evolved, from the era of mainframes and Fortran to today's embrace of the cloud. He explains bugs and why software has so many of them, and why today's interconnected computers offer fertile ground for viruses and worms. The difference between good and bad software can be a single line of code, and Barr includes code to illustrate the consequences of seemingly inconsequential choices by programmers. Looking to the future, Barr writes that the best prospect for improving software engineering is the move to the cloud. When software is a service and not a product, companies will have more incentive to make it good rather than “good enough to ship."
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262348217
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 317
Book Description
An industry insider explains why there is so much bad software—and why academia doesn't teach programmers what industry wants them to know. Why is software so prone to bugs? So vulnerable to viruses? Why are software products so often delayed, or even canceled? Is software development really hard, or are software developers just not that good at it? In The Problem with Software, Adam Barr examines the proliferation of bad software, explains what causes it, and offers some suggestions on how to improve the situation. For one thing, Barr points out, academia doesn't teach programmers what they actually need to know to do their jobs: how to work in a team to create code that works reliably and can be maintained by somebody other than the original authors. As the size and complexity of commercial software have grown, the gap between academic computer science and industry has widened. It's an open secret that there is little engineering in software engineering, which continues to rely not on codified scientific knowledge but on intuition and experience. Barr, who worked as a programmer for more than twenty years, describes how the industry has evolved, from the era of mainframes and Fortran to today's embrace of the cloud. He explains bugs and why software has so many of them, and why today's interconnected computers offer fertile ground for viruses and worms. The difference between good and bad software can be a single line of code, and Barr includes code to illustrate the consequences of seemingly inconsequential choices by programmers. Looking to the future, Barr writes that the best prospect for improving software engineering is the move to the cloud. When software is a service and not a product, companies will have more incentive to make it good rather than “good enough to ship."
Formal Methods for Software Engineering
Author: Markus Roggenbach
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303038800X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
Software programs are formal entities with precise meanings independent of their programmers, so the transition from ideas to programs necessarily involves a formalisation at some point. The first part of this graduate-level introduction to formal methods develops an understanding of what constitutes formal methods and what their place is in Software Engineering. It also introduces logics as languages to describe reasoning and the process algebra CSP as a language to represent behaviours. The second part offers specification and testing methods for formal development of software, based on the modelling languages CASL and UML. The third part takes the reader into the application domains of normative documents, human machine interfaces, and security. Use of notations and formalisms is uniform throughout the book. Topics and features: Explains foundations, and introduces specification, verification, and testing methods Explores various application domains Presents realistic and practical examples, illustrating concepts Brings together contributions from highly experienced educators and researchers Offers modelling and analysis methods for formal development of software Suitable for graduate and undergraduate courses in software engineering, this uniquely practical textbook will also be of value to students in informatics, as well as to scientists and practical engineers, who want to learn about or work more effectively with formal theories and methods. Markus Roggenbach is a Professor in the Dept. of Computer Science of Swansea University. Antonio Cerone is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Computer Science of Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan. Bernd-Holger Schlingloff is a Professor in the Institut für Informatik of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Gerardo Schneider is a Professor in the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering of University of Gothenburg. Siraj Ahmed Shaikh is a Professor in the Institute for Future Transport and Cities of Coventry University. The companion site for the book offers additional resources, including further material for selected chapters, prepared lab classes, a list of errata, slides and teaching material, and virtual machines with preinstalled tools and resources for hands-on experience with examples from the book. The URL is: https://sefm-book.github.io
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303038800X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
Software programs are formal entities with precise meanings independent of their programmers, so the transition from ideas to programs necessarily involves a formalisation at some point. The first part of this graduate-level introduction to formal methods develops an understanding of what constitutes formal methods and what their place is in Software Engineering. It also introduces logics as languages to describe reasoning and the process algebra CSP as a language to represent behaviours. The second part offers specification and testing methods for formal development of software, based on the modelling languages CASL and UML. The third part takes the reader into the application domains of normative documents, human machine interfaces, and security. Use of notations and formalisms is uniform throughout the book. Topics and features: Explains foundations, and introduces specification, verification, and testing methods Explores various application domains Presents realistic and practical examples, illustrating concepts Brings together contributions from highly experienced educators and researchers Offers modelling and analysis methods for formal development of software Suitable for graduate and undergraduate courses in software engineering, this uniquely practical textbook will also be of value to students in informatics, as well as to scientists and practical engineers, who want to learn about or work more effectively with formal theories and methods. Markus Roggenbach is a Professor in the Dept. of Computer Science of Swansea University. Antonio Cerone is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Computer Science of Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan. Bernd-Holger Schlingloff is a Professor in the Institut für Informatik of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Gerardo Schneider is a Professor in the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering of University of Gothenburg. Siraj Ahmed Shaikh is a Professor in the Institute for Future Transport and Cities of Coventry University. The companion site for the book offers additional resources, including further material for selected chapters, prepared lab classes, a list of errata, slides and teaching material, and virtual machines with preinstalled tools and resources for hands-on experience with examples from the book. The URL is: https://sefm-book.github.io
The Computer Boys Take Over
Author: Nathan L. Ensmenger
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262302829
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Book Description
The contentious history of the computer programmers who developed the software that made the computer revolution possible. This is a book about the computer revolution of the mid-twentieth century and the people who made it possible. Unlike most histories of computing, it is not a book about machines, inventors, or entrepreneurs. Instead, it tells the story of the vast but largely anonymous legions of computer specialists—programmers, systems analysts, and other software developers—who transformed the electronic computer from a scientific curiosity into the defining technology of the modern era. As the systems that they built became increasingly powerful and ubiquitous, these specialists became the focus of a series of critiques of the social and organizational impact of electronic computing. To many of their contemporaries, it seemed the “computer boys” were taking over, not just in the corporate setting, but also in government, politics, and society in general. In The Computer Boys Take Over, Nathan Ensmenger traces the rise to power of the computer expert in modern American society. His rich and nuanced portrayal of the men and women (a surprising number of the “computer boys” were, in fact, female) who built their careers around the novel technology of electronic computing explores issues of power, identity, and expertise that have only become more significant in our increasingly computerized society. In his recasting of the drama of the computer revolution through the eyes of its principle revolutionaries, Ensmenger reminds us that the computerization of modern society was not an inevitable process driven by impersonal technological or economic imperatives, but was rather a creative, contentious, and above all, fundamentally human development.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262302829
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Book Description
The contentious history of the computer programmers who developed the software that made the computer revolution possible. This is a book about the computer revolution of the mid-twentieth century and the people who made it possible. Unlike most histories of computing, it is not a book about machines, inventors, or entrepreneurs. Instead, it tells the story of the vast but largely anonymous legions of computer specialists—programmers, systems analysts, and other software developers—who transformed the electronic computer from a scientific curiosity into the defining technology of the modern era. As the systems that they built became increasingly powerful and ubiquitous, these specialists became the focus of a series of critiques of the social and organizational impact of electronic computing. To many of their contemporaries, it seemed the “computer boys” were taking over, not just in the corporate setting, but also in government, politics, and society in general. In The Computer Boys Take Over, Nathan Ensmenger traces the rise to power of the computer expert in modern American society. His rich and nuanced portrayal of the men and women (a surprising number of the “computer boys” were, in fact, female) who built their careers around the novel technology of electronic computing explores issues of power, identity, and expertise that have only become more significant in our increasingly computerized society. In his recasting of the drama of the computer revolution through the eyes of its principle revolutionaries, Ensmenger reminds us that the computerization of modern society was not an inevitable process driven by impersonal technological or economic imperatives, but was rather a creative, contentious, and above all, fundamentally human development.