Customer Reviews

Software Verification and Validation for Practitioners and Managers, Second Edition

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Bill Gates is famous for his yearly retreats where he takes
a pile of books and reads them. Maybe that's the one thing
today's managers should emulate. If you do, bring this book
along on your first sabatical.

This all new edition of the book (first published in 1997)
was even renamed to include its new, extended charter.
"Clearly management must take a leadership role in helping
the organization behave in a more predictable way. It is
for this reason that the title of the book has been changed
to include managers. [the book] includes specific actions
that managers can take to help organizations behave in a
more predictable manner."

Software development is a difficult disciple to master.
Even so, technical acumen is no guarantee of quality. "As
observed by Dr. Edwards Deming, 'The quality of a product
is directly related to the quality of the process used to
create it.'" Verification ("are we building the product
right?") and validation ("are we building the right product?")
are the first questions one must ask to begin the path
of process improvement. This book addresses those questions
and more.

The book is divided into four large sections. The first
three sections are brought forward from the previous
edition with some noticeable improvements. The new edition
is not just a rehash of the old stuff, however. Over 30 new
pages of appendices and an entire new section of the book
aimed at management with over 70 new pages have been added.
Other improvements are also evident including better formatting.
For example, the font selection and layout are much easier on
the eyes than in the previous edition.

If you own the first edition, this is a "must have" update.
If you don't own the first edition, consider this work an
SQA department "starter kit." It is well organized, well
annotated, and filled with practical artifacts such as
checklists for inspections, suggested document outlines,
and the like. This is stuff you can use.

Chapter 12 is specifically for the CEO and should be
required reading by anyone running a company with a
software development function. "Managers and executives
need to understand that having a predictable software
development process is vitally important to the long-term
success of their business." Rakitin shows how, then shows
what can be done. The prose is crisp and to-the-point.
Well done.

This book is more like a joke, a classic example of cut and paste authors writing for a highly specialized topic with no technical weight. It never should be used for computer science students (unless the instructor himself has no clue about the subject). This book is for people with no formal training who want to learn some random buzzwords.

The book was godd, but like alll the Validation/Verification books on the market... it never hits the points that are really needed to make 'your' process successful.

Although I did think that overall it is a good guide.

Este es un libro eminentemente práctico sobre "Ingeniería del Software".

A diferencia de otros libros, excesivamente llenos de ejemplos (normalmente de las malas prácticas), éste se centra en describir las diferentes aproximaciones para todas las etapas de desarrollo del software. Aunque se decanta por el modelo de desarrollo "Waterfall", explica otros modelos de desarrollo.

Un elemento a destacar de este libro es la calidad de los apéndices que incluyen numerosas plantillas de ejemplo para cada una de las etapas de desarrollo, y en especial para los procesos de inspección, y seguimiento de los errores.

Otro aspectos que se cubren éxito en este libro son los dedicados a la estimación de esfuerzos para la planificación, estimación de riesgo que en casi ningún libro de ingeniería del software ofrece alternativas tan interesantes como en este.

A modo de ejemplo, los apéndices que incluye son los siguientes:
- Inspection Roles and Responsibilities
- A Sample Inspection Process
- Inspection Process Forms
- Inspection Checklist
- Attributes of Good Requirements Specifications
- Sample Criteria for Selecting Modules for Code Inspection
- Sample Software Development Process Based on the Waterfall Model.
- Document Outlines
- Test Cases for the Triangle Program (example)
- Software Reliability Models.
- The Yellow Sticky Method
- Software Development Best Practices
- Software Quality Best Practices
- Project Postmortems
- Root-Cause Analysis

Finalmente el autor mantiene una página Web asociada al libro: http://www.swqual.com/index.html?Intro.
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Carlos Ortega
2006-01-30