Software Engineering: (Update) (8th Edition) (Hardcover)

~ Ian Sommerville (Author)
Key Phrases: preventative fault detection, critical systems validation, critical systems specification, John Wiley, Rational Unified Process, Prentice Hall (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Sensible choice and organization of topics, made all the more authoritative by the author's credentials as a senior academic in the area Prof. David S. Rosenblum, University College London I find Somerville inviting and readable and with more appropriate content Julian Padget, University of Bath Sommerville takes case studies from radically different areas of SE. This avoids excessive stereotyping (hence blinkering), but permits some depth and detail. Dr C Lester, Portsmouth University Software Engineering 8 presents a broad perspective on software systems engineering, concentrating on widely used techniques for developing large-scale systems. Structured into 6 parts: 1: Introduction; 2: Requirements Engineering; 3: Design; 4: Software Development; 5: Verification and Validation; 6: Management And now with additional new chapters on System Security Engineering, Aspect-oriented Software Development, and Service-oriented systems! Building on the widely acclaimed strengths of the 7th edition, 8 updates readers with the latest developments in the field, whilst maintaining the structure and content of the 7th easily upward compatible for those using the text in a teaching environment.

From the Back Cover

 

SOMMERVILLE

Software Engineering 8

 

The eighth edition of the best-selling introduction to software engineering is now updated with three new chapters on state-of-the-art topics.

 

New chapters in the 8th edition

 

Ø      Security engineering, showing youhow you can design software to resist attacks and recover from damage;

Ø      Service-oriented software engineering, explaininghow reusable web services can be used to develop new applications;

Ø      Aspect-oriented software development, introducing new techniques based on the separation of concerns.

 

Key features

 

Ø      Includes the latest developments in software engineering theory and practice, integrated with relevant aspects of systems engineering.

Ø      Extensive coverage ofagile methods andreuse.

Ø      Integrated coverage of system safety, security and reliability – illustrating best practice in developing critical systems.

Ø      Two running case studies (an information system and a control system) illuminate different stages of thesoftware lifecycle.

 

Online resources

 

Visit www.pearsoned.co.uk/sommerville to access a full range of resources for students and instructors.

 

In addition, a rich collection of resources including links to other web sites, teaching material on related courses and additional chapters is available at http://www.software-engin.com.

 

 

IAN SOMMERVILLE is Professor of Software Engineering at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

 

 

Product Details

• Hardcover: 864 pages
• Publisher: Addison Wesley; 8 edition (June 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321313798
• ISBN-13: 978-0321313799
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #204,216 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars see new chapters on Web Services and Aspect programming, December 25, 2006

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It has been 2 years since Sommerville put out the 7th edition of this book. So what has changed? Three new chapters have been added at the end of the 8th edition.

One is entitled "Service-oriented software engineering". All about Web Services, which is a burgeoning field. The 7th edition just had a relatively brief explanation about XML and the sundry services developing atop it. Now the 8th edition goes into those, like the Web Service Description Language, and the Business Process Execution Language. To be sure, the chapter is not an exhaustive explanation of the syntax and usages of these languages. For that, you need to consult books devoted to them (and these do indeed exist). Rather, the chapter furnishes a concise overview that gives you the essence of what they can do. I actually think the chapter should have been simply called "Web Services". The actual title, while accurate, is too indirect.

Another new chapter looks at aspect oriented programming. Again, just an overview. But it does convey accurately what AOP offers. Centred around the key idea of cross cutting concerns. And that conventional object oriented code tends inevitably to have closely related code scattered thru many classes; making maintenance harder. It is by no means clear that AOP will ever become common. But it is one of the most intriguing ideas to arise recently, and Sommerville is correct in explaining it.

In the existing chapters brought over from the 7th edition, I do still disagree with his remarks on Extreme Programming. While XP does have some laudatory features, I take issue with the constant refactoring and the pair programming, as well as having a customer onsite at the developers' place. The latter is simply not realistic in some projects.

While pair programming, and not having programmers responsible for specific parts of the code, totally ignores different levels of expertise. Some programmers are simply better (or more experienced) than others. A real danger is having 2 neophyte programmers unwork complex code made by a senior programmer, that they simply did not understand. If you have done any programming, you will encounter subroutines that are highly intricate and intrinsically hard to understand. Typically, these subroutines are only a small part of the total code. But they might play a crucial part. They should be associated with specific programmers, who are responsible for them.

Another reason against pair programming is when the programmers are not just "pure" programmers. They might have backgrounds in various engineering or scientific fields, where this background is needed for the project. So a programmer/engineer versed in mechanical design, and who has to code accordingly, has different responsibilities from another programmer who has to deal with modelling the electrical circuitry, for example. At the design level, it makes eminent sense to sometimes pair these, when the domains overlap. But at the programming level, each can't usually do the other's work.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good high-level book, April 10, 2007

By	G. L. Sinsley (State College, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a good high-level book for a first software engineering course. It mentions things like critical systems, object oriented programming, and real -time systems, but at a very high level; so it should not be used for a specialized course. It provides many helpful examples and diagrams. My only complaint is that the chapters are very long, and a lot of things are repeated several times. I think this book could easily be 75% shorter without loosing any important information.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A nice book in software engineering, February 2, 2007

By	M. Lutfi "Linux Newbie" (Santa Rosa, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this book as a required textbook for my grad course. I've learned a lot from my past misconception and misunderstanding between software science and software engineering just after reading a few chapters from the book.

The book covers wide aspects of engineering a software, both technical aspects and non-technical aspects (social, laws, ethics) although not in deep-breath details.

I highly recommend this book for any students who want to know about software engineering, pracicing software engineers who want to enhance their engineering ana managerial capability in developing a good software or for self-study for anybody who want to jump into software business.