Large-Scale, Component-Based Development

1.2. Software Development Challenges

This rapid increase in the power, availability, and use of computer technology has had a number of important consequences. For those responsible for provisioning and maintaining software-intensive systems, the most compelling of these are:

• the demand for computer software has not been met by software producers at the rate required (the so-called "software crisis");

• the complexity of computer software is constantly growing, both in the size of developed systems, and the intricacy of its operation to meet the extensive functional and non-functional requirements placed upon it;

• the rate of change of computer technology has increased the risk that projects with a long life cycle can have early technology decisions ...