Product Description

Software Engineering presents a broad perspective on software systems engineering, concentrating on widely used techniques for developing large-scale systems. The objectives of this seventh edition are to include new material on iterative software development, component-based software engineering and system architectures, to emphasize that system dependability is not an add-on but should be considered at all stages of the software process, and not to increase the size of the book significantly.

To this end the book has been restructured into 6 parts, removing the separate section on evolution  as the distinction between development and evolution can be seen as artificial. New chapters have been added on:

Socio-technical Systems – discussing the context of software in a broader system composed of other hardware and software, people, organisations, policies, procedures and laws.

Application System Architectures – to teach students the general structure of application systems such as transaction systems, information systems and embedded control systems. The chapter covers 6 common system architectures with an architectural overview and discussion of the characteristics of these types of system.

Iterative Software Development – looking at prototyping and adding new material on agile methods and extreme programming.

Component-based Software Engineering – introducing the notion of a component, component composition and component frameworks and covering design with reuse.
Software Evolution – revising the presentation of the 6th edition to cover re-engineering and software change in a single chapter.

The book supports students taking undergraduate or graduate courses in software engineering, and software engineers in industry needing to update their knowledge.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #143122 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 784 pages

Customer Reviews

The best software engineering textbook around
This new edition is an even greater improvement on the excellent software engineering series by Ian Sommerville. As a final year student at university, I found it packed with information (including new chapters on Application Architexture, Rapid Software Development and Component-Based Software Engineering) yet at the same time easy to read, comprehensive and clear, with no waffle. The numerous examples and set questions are particularly useful. Basically, Software Engineering edition 7 is must for all students studying this topic.

Reference Book
This is a book that all people involved in the development of medium and large-scale software systems should read. In this 7th edition, Sommerville covers and extends all important details in the life-cycle of any of these systems: from requirements, specification and design to development, verification and validation - not forgetting management. The author also gives special relevance to the social-technical aspects of software system development, all the processes involved in it and also project management.

Managing people deserves its own part in the book as it involves, arguably, the most critical processes to achieve success: an evolving system with assured quality in terms of availability, reliability, safety and security. Due to their sensitive characteristics, critical systems are a special class of systems widely covered throughout all the book.

In this book, Sommerville demonstrates his considerable experience of being involved as an actor with different roles in the life-cycle of several large-scale and complex systems. He successfully manages to pass the knowledge acquired to the reader. Very useful UML and Java practical examples are employed to exemplify the theoretical concepts and foundations of software engineering.

Great book for covering everything
This book is extremely well written, is easy to read and has a broad coverage of the most important topics in software engineering. Somerville even provides references to other books that provide more in depth coverage of the topics discussed.

This is a great book for both software engineering professionals and students alike. If you are put off by the fact it is an academic book, don't be- it is very easy to read, and highly relevant.

A thorough discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of most of the things he talks about is presented in the book.

This book is the de facto book on software engineering.