Fifty years of progress in software engineering

Abstract

In this paper, I describe a new outlook on the history of Software Engineering. I portray large-scale structures within Software Engineering to give a better understanding of the flow of history. I use these large-scale structures to reveal the steady, ongoing evolution of concepts, and show how they relate to the myriad whorls and eddies of change. I also have four smaller, more specific purposes in writing this paper.First, I want to point out that old ideas do not die. In The Mythical Man-Month after 20 Years, Brooks claims "the Waterfall Model is Wrong." But if the Waterfall model were wrong, we would stop arguing over it. Though the Waterfall model may not describe the whole truth, it describes an interesting structure that occurs in many well-defined projects and it will continue to describe this truth for a long time to come. I expect the Waterfall model will live on for the next one hundred years and more.Second, I want to show that the Chaos model, Chaos life cycle, Complexity Gap, and Chaos strategy are part of the natural evolution of Software Engineering. The Chaos model and strategy supersede, but do not contradict, the Waterfall and Spiral models, and the Stepwise Refinement strategy. They are more up to date because they express contemporary issues more effectively, and fit our contemporary situations better. The Chaos model, life cycle, and strategy are equally as important, but not better than, other concepts.Third, I compare the Chaos model, life cycle, and strategy to other models, life cycles, and strategies. This paper can be considered a comparison of the ideas presented in my papers about chaos with other ideas in the field. I avoided comparisons in my other papers because I wanted to define those ideas in their own terms and the comparisons did not further the new ideas.Fourth, I make a few predictions about the next ten years of Software Engineering. The large-scale structures described in this history provide a stronger base for understanding how software engineering will evolve in the future.This paper is laid out as follows. In the first section, I use the flow of water as a metaphor to describe the flow of progress in Software Engineering. I use the Water metaphor to show some of the structures within Software Engineering. The current work builds on top of the historical work, and future work will build on top of current work. In the remaining sections, I describe the waves, streams, and tides that portray the evolution of concepts and technologies in Software Engineering.

Index Terms

• Software and its engineering