Software development often snowballs into a crushing corporate expense, due to the complexity of predicting and estimating all the unknowns. Now, thanks to this unique book from one of the world's best-known software engineers, readers have access to the latest tools and guidance needed to estimate and measure costs accurately. Covers commercially available estimation tools, contract management, litigation concerns, and much more.
Capers Jones was born in St. Petersburg, Florida. He later attended the University of Florida in Gainesville.
While working for the U.S. Public Health Service as an editor, he had an opportunity to learn programming. He then became a programmer/analyst and worked on software applications for hospital administration.
In 1965 he moved to corporate industry as a systems analyst for Crane Company. Two years later he joined IBM in Boulder, Colorado. At IBM he became interested in software estimating, and developed a proprietary estimating tool for IBM with Dr. Charles Turk. After both management and research positions in IBM, he was invited to join a new software laboratory being created by the ITT Corporation in Stratford, Connecticut. As assistant director of measurements he was part of the company's first software measurement program.
In 1984 he founded Software Productivity Research (SPR), and began to develop commercial software estimating tools. SPQR/20 in 1984 was the first commercial estimating tool based on function point metrics. Allan Albrecht, the inventor of function points, joined SPR after retiring from IBM. While at SPR Allan developed the first certification exam for function point analysis.
Capers first software management book was Programming Productivity: Issues for the Eighties, published by the IEEE Computer Society Press in 1979. He has now published more than a dozen books on software management topics including Estimating Software Costs, 2nd edition, McGraw Hilll 2007; Applied Software Measurement 3rd edition, McGraw Hill, 2008; and Software Engineering Best Practices, McGraw Hill, 2010. His next book will be The Economics of Software Quality with Jitendra Subramanyam as co author. It will be published by Addison Wesley later in 2011.
In 2006 Capers switched genres and published a history book entitled "The History and Future of Narragansett Bay." This book covers the geology, ecology, and settlement of the Bay region from before the last ice age through modern times. It also discusses the Native Americans who lived and still live near the Bay, and the settlement history of 18 Bay towns. Economic and political topics are also included.
His current research topics include early, high-speed sizing of software applications; improving software quality control, and improving software risk and value analysis prior to funding major applications. He is also working on expanding function points to included "data points" for sizing data bases and "value point" for integrating financial and non-financial value topics.
