Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering

Foreword

When I first heard that Bob Glass was going to write this book and model it after my 201 Principles of Software Development, I was a bit worried. After all, Bob is one of the best writers in the industry, and he would provide tough competition for my book. And then, when Bob asked me to write his foreword, I became even more worried; after all, how can I endorse a book that seems to compete directly with one of mine? Now that I have read Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, I am pleased and honored (and no longer worried!) to have the opportunity to write this foreword.

The software industry is in the same state of affairs that the pharmaceutical industry was in during the late nineteenth century. Sometimes it seems that we ...