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CHAPTER

1 THE PRODUCT

KEY he warnings began more than a decade before the event, but no one paid
CONCEPTS
much attention. With less than two years to the deadline, the media
application Tpicked up the story. Then government officials voiced their concern, busi-
categories . . . . . . . 9
ness and industry leaders committed vast sums of money, and finally, dire warn-
component-based
assembly. . . . . . . . . 8 ings of pending catastrophe penetrated the public’s consciousness. Software,
in the guise of the now-infamous Y2K bug, would fail and, as a result, stop the
failure curves. . . . . 8
world as we then knew it.
history . . . . . . . . . . 5
As we watched and wondered during the waning months of 1999, I couldn’t
myths . . . . . . . . . . 12
help thinking of an unintentionally prophetic paragraph contained on the first
reuse . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
page of the fourth edition of this book. It stated:
software
characteristics . . . . 6 Computer software has become a driving force. It is the engine that drives business
software decision making. It serves as the basis for modern scientific investigation and engi-
engineering . . . . . . 4
neering problem solving. It is a key factor that differentiates modern products and
wear . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 services. It is embedded in systems of all kinds: transportation, medical, telecom-
munications, military, industrial processes, entertainment, office products, . . . the
list is almost endless. Software is virtually inescapable in a modern world. And as
we move into the twenty-first century, it will become the driver for new advances in
everything from elementary education to genetic engineering.

QUICK What is it? Computer software is What are the steps? You build computer software
LOOK the product that software engi- like you build any successful product, by apply-
neers design and build. It encom- ing a process that leads to a high-quality result
passes programs that execute within a computer that meets the needs of the people who will use
of any size and architecture, documents that the product. You apply a software engineering
encompass hard-copy and virtual forms, and approach.
data that combine numbers and text but also What is the work product? From the point of view of
includes representations of pictorial, video, and a software engineer, the work product is the pro-
audio information. grams, documents, and data that are computer
Who does it? Software engineers build it, and virtu- software. But from the user’s viewpoint, the work
ally everyone in the industrialized world uses it product is the resultant information that somehow
either directly or indirectly. makes the user’s world better.
Why is it important? Because it affects nearly every How do I ensure that I’ve done it right? Read the
aspect of our lives and has become pervasive in remainder of this book, select those ideas appli-
our commerce, our culture, and our everyday cable to the software that you build, and apply
activities. them to your work.

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