Pioneering software engineer Capers Jones has written the first and only definitive history of the entire software engineering industry. Drawing on his extraordinary vantage point as a leading practitioner for several decades, Jones reviews the entire history of IT and software engineering, assesses its impact on society, and previews its future. One decade at a time, Jones assesses emerging trends and companies, winners and losers, new technologies, methods, tools, languages, productivity/quality benchmarks, challenges, risks, professional societies, and more. He quantifies both beneficial and harmful software inventions; accurately estimates the size of both the US and global software industries; and takes on “unexplained mysteries” such as why and how programming languages gain and lose popularity.
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Walker Royce vii
Foreword by Tony Salvaggio ix
Preface xix
Acknowledgments xxvii
About the Author xxix
Chapter 1: Prelude: Computing from Ancient Times to the Modern Era 1
The Human Need to Compute 1
Early Sequence of Numerical Knowledge 3
Inventions for Improved Mathematics 8
Key Inventions Relevant to Software 21
The Impact of Software on People and Society 23
Summary 35
Chapter 2: 1930 to 1939: The Foundations of Digital Computing 37
The First Innovators of Modern Computing 37
Small Mathematical Applications 40
Summary 42
Chapter 3: 1940 to 1949: Computing During World War II and the Postwar Era 43
Global Conflict and Computing 43
Wartime Innovations 45
Computers in the Postwar Era 68
Historical Contributions of the Decade 73
Building Software in 1945 75
Summary 76
Chapter 4: 1950 to 1959: Starting the Ascent of Digital Computers and Software 77
Military and Defense Computers in the 1950s 77
Innovators of the 1950s 81
Programming Languages of the 1950s 84
The First Commercial Computers 85
Software Applications in the 1950s 89
Function Points in 1955 90
Summary 91
Chapter 5: 1960 to 1969: The Rise of Business Computers and Business Software 93
An Evolving Workforce 93
Early Specialized Outsourcing 95
Computer Programmers in the 1960s 96
IBM System/360 104
The Turing Award 106
The Invention of the Credit Card 109
Automation and New Professions 110
The DEC PDP-1 111
Programming Languages of the 1960s 112
The Computer Business of the 1960s 115
Litigation Changes the Computer World Forever 118
Computers and Software in Space 119
Computer and Software Growth in the 1960s 120
Function Points Backfired for 1965 122
Summary 123
Chapter 6: 1970 to 1979: Computers and Software Begin Creating Wealth 125
Software Evolution in the 1970s 125
Major Companies Formed During the 1970s 129
Computer and Software Companies Formed During the 1970s 130
The Impact of Companies Founded During the 1970s 145
The Troublesome Growth of Software Applications 146
Numerous Fragmented Software Subcategories 147
A Lawsuit That Changed Computer History 158
Background Enabling Inventions 159
Function Points in 1975 162
Summary 163
Chapter 7: 1980 to 1989: The Rise of Personal Computers and Personal Software 165
Rapid Changes in Computing 166
Companies Formed During the 1980s 168
The Growth of Software During the 1980s 204
Results for 1,000 Function Points Circa 1985 204
Summary 205
Chapter 8: 1990 to 1999: Expansion of the World Wide Web and the Rise of Dot-Coms 207
Emergence of the World Wide Web 208
Other Innovations of the 1990s 210
Companies Formed During the 1990s 212
Mass Updates and Aging Legacy Software 237
Incompatibilities of International Date Formats 239
The Expansion of Outsourcing 243
Growth of Software Applications During the 1990s 243
Results for 1,000 Function Points Circa 1995 244
Summary 245
Chapter 9: 2000 to 2009: The Rise of Social Networks and Economic Crises 247
The Dot-Com Bubble 248
The Great Recession 250
Innovations of the 2000s 254
Companies Formed During the 2000s 257
Growth of Software from 2000 to 2010 283
Results for 1,000 Function Points Circa 2005 284
Summary 285
Chapter 10: 2010 to 2019: Clouds, Crowds, Blogs, Big Data, and Predictive Analytics 287
Predicting the Future 288
Professional Status for Software Engineering 289
Possible Software Engineering Improvements in the 2010s 293
Companies Formed During the Early 2010s 296
Predicting New Companies and Products from 2013 to 2019 311
Projected Growth of Software from 2010 to 2019 327
Results for 1,000 Function Points Circa 2015 328
Summary 329
Chapter 11: Modern Software Problems 331
Analysis of Major Software Failures 331
Summary 349
Chapter 12: A Brief History of Cybercrime and Cyberwarfare 351
A New Form of Crime 351
Types of Cyberattacks 362
The Odds of Being Attacked 392
Improving Defenses Against Cyberattacks 394
Raising Our Immunity to Cyberattacks 396
The Increasing Frequency and Costs of Cyberattacks in the United States 404
Summary 406
Appendix A: Annotated Bibliography and References 407
Index 423
About the Author :
Capers Jones is cofounder, vice president, and chief technology officer of Namcook Analytics LLC. Before founding Namcook Analytics LLC in 2011, he was the president of Capers Jones & Associates LLC from 2000 through 2011. He is also the founder and former chairman of Software Productivity Research LLC (SPR).
Before founding SPR, Capers was assistant director of Programming Technology for the ITT Corporation at the Programming Technology Center in Stratford, Connecticut. He created the first software measurement program at ITT. Capers Jones was also a manager and software researcher at IBM in California, where he designed IBM’s first software cost estimating tools in 1973 and 1974.
In total, Capers Jones has designed seven proprietary software estimation tools and four commercial software estimation tools. He has also published a total of fifteen books on software engineering and software management topics, including, with Olivier Bonsignour, The Economics of Software Quality (Addison-Wesley, 2011).
