Books

An in-depth introduction to software engineering that uses a systematic, universal kernel called Essence to teach essential elements of all software engineering methods

SEMAT (Software Engineering Methods and Theory) is an international initiative designed to identify a common ground, or universal standard, for software engineering. It is supported by some of the most distinguished contributors to the field. Creating a simple language to describe methods and practices, the SEMAT team expresses this common ground as a kernel–or framework–of elements essential to all software development. The Essence of Software Engineering introduces this kernel and shows how to apply it when developing software and communicating among teams and team members. It is a book for software professionals, not methodologists. Its usefulness to developers, who need to evaluate and choose the best practices for their particular projects, goes well beyond the description or application of any single methodology.

"I firmly believe that this work... will have a profound impact on governments and corporations worldwide, as they seek excellence, efficiency and profitability. It is an authoritative guide on how to realize the ultimate adaptive enterprise architecture..." - Dan L. Jonson, Avemco Corporation. Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is the key management trend of the day. Ivar Jacobson's book, The Object Advantage, presents a blueprint for re-designing a business according to BPR principles. It uses one method to integrate his work of reengineering a business, its processes and its vital infrastructure the information system. It describes all of the details about a business and its processes by viewing customers as users and business processes as cases of how they use the business "use cases". And it manages the risks involved in BPR by using a how-to method based on object technology, offering concrete guidance in the shape of a formal reengineering process. Whilst most books tackle the "soft factors" (motivation, management commitment, leadership), The Object Advantage goes beyond this type of hand-waving and offers practical steps to success that include: * A description that specifies every activity and deliverable involved in the business process Deliverables, in the form of business models, that focus on the company's architecture and dynamics * A process for the development of an information system that is truly integral to the reengineered company * A seamless relationship is created between business model and information system, vastly increasing a company's chances of successfully re-enginneering itself - the heart of this relationship is the application of the BPR model and object technology. Ivar Jacobson's book will be essential reading for any manager contemplating reengineering their business or wishing to understand more about BPR and its practical implementation. It will also be invaluable for re-enginnering teams re-designing their companies, employees within a reengineered company needing to understand how their new environment will work and what their role will be, and systems analysts and designers wanting to expand their current applications of object technology into business modeling and business reengineering.

How can software developers, programmers and managers meet the challenges of the 90s and begin to resolve the software crisis? This book is based on Objectory which is the first commercially available comprehensive object-oriented process for developing large-scale industrial systems. Ivar Jacobson developed Objectory as a result of 20 years of experience building real software-based products. The approach takes a global view of system development and focuses on minimizing the system's life cycle cost. Objectory is an extensible industrial process that provides a method for building large industrial systems. This revised printing has been completely updated to make it as accessible and complete as possible. New material includes the revised Testing chapter, in which new product developments are discussed. This book shows how software development can be carried out in a more "industrialized" manner using ObjectOry, a complete environment evolved by the author for the development of large software systems with an object-oriented approach. It relies on three independently developed techniques: conceptual modelling, object-oriented programming, and a block-oriented design technique developed within telecommunications. Suitable for self-study or classroom use, the book is divided into three sections: an introduction to system development and the requirements of an industrial process; the use of object-orientation in the different phases of system development, using ObjectOry; and applications with ObjectOry. Thus, the book presents a coherent picture of how to use object-orientation in system development in a way which makes it accessible to both practitioners in the field and students with no previous knowledge of system development.