Since 1960, Advances in Computers has chronicled the constantly shifting theories and methods of Information Technology which greatly shapes our lives today
This volume, the 59th in the series, presents two general themes. The first 4 papers discuss tool use in developing software - how groups work together to produce a product, and why the very industries that need them often do NOT adopt such tools. The fifth paper addresses a current hardware issue - cache coherence. As we build faster machines, a way to increase performance is to have multiple CPUs working on solving the same problem. This requires two or more CPUs to address the same memory at the same time. The cache coherence problem is how to allow both machines to access the same memory without "stepping on each others toes" so that memory gets lost or corrupted
*In depth surveys and tutorials on new computer technology
*Well-known authors and researchers in the field
*Broad overview of many important developments
*Extensive bibliographies with most chapters
*Four out of 5 chapters focus on software developemnt technology and should appeal to a software development organization or a university course on software development practices

Although software engineering can trace its beginnings to a NATO conf- ence in 1968, it cannot be said to have become an empirical science until the 1970s with the advent of the work of Prof. Victor Robert Basili of the University of Maryland. In addition to the need to engineer software was the need to understand software. Much like other sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and biology, software engineering needed a discipline of obs- vation, theory formation, experimentation, and feedback. By applying the scientific method to the software engineering domain, Basili developed concepts like the Goal-Question-Metric method, the Quality-Improvement- Paradigm, and the Experience Factory to help bring a sense of order to the ad hoc developments so prevalent in the software engineering field. On the occasion of Basili's 65th birthday, we present this book c- taining reprints of 20 papers that defined much of his work. We divided the 20 papers into 6 sections, each describing a different facet of his work, and asked several individuals to write an introduction to each section. Instead of describing the scope of this book in this preface, we decided to let one of his papers, the keynote paper he gave at the International C- ference on Software Engineering in 1996 in Berlin, Germany to lead off this book. He, better than we, can best describe his views on what is - perimental software engineering.

Although software engineering can trace its beginnings to a NATO conf- ence in 1968, it cannot be said to have become an empirical science until the 1970s with the advent of the work of Prof. Victor Robert Basili of the University of Maryland. In addition to the need to engineer software was the need to understand software. Much like other sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and biology, software engineering needed a discipline of obs- vation, theory formation, experimentation, and feedback. By applying the scientific method to the software engineering domain, Basili developed concepts like the Goal-Question-Metric method, the Quality-Improvement- Paradigm, and the Experience Factory to help bring a sense of order to the ad hoc developments so prevalent in the software engineering field. On the occasion of Basili's 65th birthday, we present this book c- taining reprints of 20 papers that defined much of his work. We divided the 20 papers into 6 sections, each describing a different facet of his work, and asked several individuals to write an introduction to each section. Instead of describing the scope of this book in this preface, we decided to let one of his papers, the keynote paper he gave at the International C- ference on Software Engineering in 1996 in Berlin, Germany to lead off this book. He, better than we, can best describe his views on what is - perimental software engineering.

Based on material used by the authors in their teaching, this volume provides a detailed comparison and study of the various methods for reasoning about software. The material offers a comprehensive understanding of which program structures are easier to manipulate by formal techniques, thus allowing professionals to write programs that are easier to reason about informally. The basic technology presented should be of use in all programming environments.