Intro
Presentations
Sample chapters
Electronic supplements
Case studies
Further reading
Instructors only
SE8 Web
  Introduction


A note on browsers
I have checked this page with 4 browsers - Explorer, Firefox and Safari on the Mac and Explorer on a PC. It displays differently on all of them. Safari looks best, then Firefox and lastly IE.


Version 2. January 2005
I have given a cleaner look to the pages and made them more maintainable. New material added under case studies and lots more suggestions for further reading.


The Wizard of Oz
For those intrigued by the reference to the Wizard of Oz in Chapter 16, it comes from the classic film, The Wizard of Oz. In this film, a giant wizard rules the magical city of Oz but is revealed to be a man projecting himself into a machine.

In Wizard of Oz prototyping, the user's inputs are interpreted by a person who responds in the same way as the intended program.


Contact details
ian<a>software-engin<d>com

Replace <a> and <d> with the usual symbols. You should include [SE7] in the mail title and send plain text - otherwise, my spam filters may delete your mail. Please do not send attachments - for security reasons, I will not open them.


 

This is a legacy site that is no longer maintained. The contact address (ian attt software-engin.com) given in the 7th edition is no longer operational.

The 9th edition of Software Engineering with major changes in structure and content was published in April 2010. Click here to go to the 9th edition website.

My professional web site is www.software-engin.com; my personal blog and web site is iansommerville.com.

The 7th edition of my textbook on software engineering presents a general overview of software engineering, concentrating on practical approaches that are used for developing large and complex software systems. The book covers all aspects of software production from initial requirements elicitation through design and development to software project management. Key features of the book are extensive coverage of software architecture, critical systems and software reuse.

More than 400,000 readers have learnt the foundations of software systems engineering from previous editions of this best-selling book.   An extensive set of supplementary material for users of the book may be downloaded from the links above. These include powerpoint presentations, case study material, Java program source code and a software engineering glossary. If you are using the book in a course that you are teaching, quizzes and solutions to selected exercises are also available for instructors who are registered with Pearson Education.


Changes from the 6th edition

The book has a slightly different structure, all chapters have been updated and coverage extended to include the latest techniques such as agile methods and component-based software engineering. I have added new chapters on socio-technical systems, application architectures, rapid software development and component-based software engineering, and significantly revised about half of the other chapters from the 6th edition.

To avoid content creep, I have summarised all of the chapters in the 6th edition covering software evolution into a single chapter, with chapters on legacy systems, software re-engineering and software change still available as electronic supplements.

New material for instructors. I have suggested syllabuses for courses in software engineering, advanced software engineering and critical systems and have prepared presentations to cover all of these syllabuses.

A Belorussian translation of this page is now available.


 
The material here has been included for its instructional value. Neither the author nor Pearson Education Ltd offer any warranties or representations in respect of its fitness for a particular purpose. No liability is accepted by either the author or the publisher for any loss or damage arising from its use.  The dynamic nature of the web means that it cannot be guaranteed that all links will work. Please let me know of problems and (if possible) I will try and fix them.