Decline And Fall Of The American Programmer [Textbook Binding]

Edward Yourdon (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0132036703 | ISBN-13: 978-0132036702 | Publication Date: March 13, 1992 | Edition: 1

In this work, Ed Yourdon demonstrates how US software organizations can become world-class shops if they exploit the key software technologies of the 1990s. These technologies include object-oriented methods, CASE tools, software quality assurance, structured methods, software metrics, and re-engineering. Separate chapters are devoted to each of these technologies. Each chapter can be read on its own, and the associated software technology discussed in a given chapter can be implemented by an organization without necessarily implementing any other technology. However, the sequence of chapters reflects Yourdon's opinion about the ideal order in which critical issues should be tackled by an organization. Perhaps the most important issues discussed in the book are the "peopleware" issues crucial to running an efficient software development operation: effective hiring practices, training methods, motivational strategies, performance management procedures, and project team co-ordination. Filled with debate and commentary from international software development consultants and experts, this book demonstrates to US programmers, analysts, software engineers as well as to those in management positions, how to take advantaged of productivity improvements techniques practiced by world-class software development shops in Japan and the Far East, Europe, and Latin America.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

All over the world, software development organizations are grappling with staggering problems of productivity and quality. But while most organizations see the current situation as a problem, a few--the "world- class" software organizations--see it as an opportunity, and have publicly commited to bringing about ten-fold improvements by the mid-1990s.

From the Back Cover

According to Edward Yourdon, software development may soon move out of the U.S. into software factories in a dozen countries unless U.S. software organizations exploit the key software technologies examined in this new publication. Here Mr. Yourdon takes a close look at how U.S. companies can implement object oriented methods, CASE tools, software quality assurance, structured methods, software metrics, and re-engineering. For U.S. programmers, analysts, software engineers, and software development managers. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Textbook Binding: 320 pages
• Publisher: Yourdon; 1 edition (March 13, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132036703
• ISBN-13: 978-0132036702
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,752,720 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #81 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Culture > Careers

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Plausible possibility. Feeble solutions., August 19, 2001

By 

Peter Soucy (Plymouth, MN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Decline and Fall of the American Programmer (Paperback)

I never bought the book but read it in one sitting at a bookstore a few years ago. I had every intention of buying the book but when I casually started viewing it, I could not put it down. By the time I was ready to make a purchase, I already read the book. (Sorry, Ed). The author is no stranger to controversy and I must admit the book at the time provoked everything from fear and anger to denial in me regarding my chosen profession. Although it's publication predates the emergence of the Internet and the vast changes that have taken place since then, industry guru Ed Yourdon gives a rather plausible thesis as to why software development could move overseas. There is no question that software engineering in India has developed a worlwide reputation for high quality and only now, in the last 3 years has the realization of his prophecy accelerated. However, the main impetus behind this trend has been to take advantage of the cheaper labor pool. It is for this reason I find the author's proposed solutions to be feeble. Increased use of CASE tools, object-oriented methods, and iterative development may improve the quality of American software but doesn't remotely address the enormous salary differential between say, Indian programmers and their American counterparts. Quality and innovation can only go so far and these practices are now already standard and widespread throught the industry.

That said, even the book's thesis is not without it's problems. The author does not seem to take into account that the workforce in the American software industry is much more diverse than it was 10 or 15 years ago, making the situation more complicated than the stereotypical lazy white guys competing against the rest of the world. Nearly a quarter of my colleagues are from India and there's no reason to suspect they're any less smarter than professionals in Bangalore. Also, the focus of the book seems to be on writing code. If that was all there was to developing and supporting information systems, I'd be inclined to agree with the author 100%. As it happens, the most complicated aspects of system development isn't always writing the code or even design, but communication involving everything from requirements analysis to coordination of development for various parts of the system encompassing database changes as well as client and middleware components. This is not to say it would be impossible to coordinate that with people on the other side of the world but difficult. It IS possible and has been tried but the results have been mixed. If my employer were to try this, they may very well save on programmer costs only to see their savings eaten up by new costs in communication infrastructure, endless business trips, more meetings...

The bottom line: Software development will continue to be delegated to oversees firms and will have a profound effect on some job prospects here and on the nature of the work itself, but the American programmer is far from becoming an endangered species.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A 'must read ', but for historical reasons only, November 2, 2003

By 

Celia Redmore "Celia Redmore" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Decline and Fall of the American Programmer (Paperback)

Five years after reading this book when it was first published, I bought a secondhand copy (as well as a copy of Rise and Resurrection) to take another look. Obviously, the American Programmer is in decline, so Ed Yourdan got that right. The question is whether the book has anything important to say to us today.

This is a book about case tools. Anybody remember them? Yourdan's argument was that the willingness of Indian programmers to use case tools would enable them to produce good, cheap software at a fraction of the cost of that generated by American 'cowboys'. His strong advice for programmers in the US was to start using mechanistic methods, so that they could also start churning out code like cookies in a cookie factory.

Most probably, Decline and Fall will remain an interesting book for students of computer science to read for many years into the future - not for what it got right, but for what it got wrong. Common wisdom today (which may become foolishness tomorrow) is that American Programmers can't hope to compete against people living in poor nations by trying to undercut them on cost, but only by using their native creativity and willingness to explore new frontiers to create truly new products.

In other words, Yourdan correctly forsaw the future, but badly misjudged the solution.

23 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Free Upgrade?, December 20, 1999

By 

Peter Norvig (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Decline and Fall of the American Programmer (Paperback)

If the author followed his own guidelines for quality management, he would offer every owner of this book a free upgrade to "Resurrection of the American Programmer", in which he explains why he was so wrong in this book. But I think you'd be better off refusing the upgrade, and going with DeMarco, Beck, or Fowler.