- Email: [email protected]
Agents of change: managing the introduction of automated tools
BOilS Poor writing halts transfer of the technology of technology transfer Agents of change: managing the introduction of automated tools B M Bouldin Yourdon Press (1989) 198 pp £36.40 hardback I have been reviewing books, on and off, for over 10 years. I must admit that I am generally disappointed by the books I review. The books I find interesting and important seem to be the ones I get from the library or buy for myself. I console myself with the knowledge that reviews are unsolicited and leave it at that.
This book, however, is one I asked the editor to allow me to review. Technology transfer is a subject of vital importance to the entire practice of computing. It is perhaps the profession's weakest point. Barbara Bouldin's credentials in the subject are impeccable and her experience is profound. I thought that this would be a book that I could not afford to miss. Once again, though, I am sorry to say that I was disappointed. I believe that all computing practitioners need an awareness of the subject of technology transfer. Unfortunately,
Issues in software engineering education addressed Issues in software engineering education R Fairley and P Freeman (eds) Springer-Verlag (1989) 595pp DM88.00 hardback Software engineering education is, for people who have to assume this task, a source of multiple interrogations for which experience sharing is extremely valuable: at which level should we realise this training course? Which are the prerequisites? What program should we establish? What are the right concepts to teach? How can we demonstrate that they are the right concepts? How can we most efficiently teach the techniques? Which tools should we use? What part of the whole should we reserve for the project? How should it be organized? This book provides interesting answers to all these questions. It was compiled from papers accepted by the program committee of the 1987 Conference on Software Engineering Education held in Monroeville, PA, USA. During the conference, some papers were not presented orally, to stimulate discussions among the attendees. For these papers, the book contains, in addition, a synopsis by the author and the associated question-and-answer session. The described experiences cover academic education at undergraduate and graduate levels as well as industrial education and training. Readers will also find reports on collaborative academic and industry approaches and a discussion on the role of Ada in teaching specifications, programming, and software engineering concepts. The great convergence of the rapporteurs' conclusions and the uniformity of approaches in the different organizations was surprising. For undergraduate software engineering courses, teachers want to train their students with parallelism, black box,
vol 33 no 3 april 1991
concurrency control, reusability, abstract types and modular conception concepts. They need tool boxes, including compiler, text editor, syntax-directed editor, interpreter, linker, symbolic debugger, and dynamic analyser and teach their students how to write the different reports on a project. Graduatelevel software engineering education students must have at least one year of software development experience. Teachers need to have many sophisticated tools and set up control quality procedures. Industrial education and training are established with academic collaboration to avoid teaching existing techniques and methods limited to the enterprise's requirements. Whatever level and place, a great part of the course (approximately 50%) is spared for designing and realisation of a three-to-eight student team involved in real projects, set up, for most of them, with industrials. Concerning the use of Ada in the courses, it seems this language was competitive with Modula2, and it has to convince the university community to change programming teaching purposes. Let me remark that presented papers contain detailed programs and lists of tools and books used, but it is regrettable that attendees have not discussed enough development methods recommended for the projects. I would finish the presentation of a book that I recommend, without reservation, to all people concerned with software engineering education, with a slight criticism: it would have been better to put synopsis and question-and-answer sessions just after the relevant papers rather than to collect them at the beginning of chapters. M J BLIN Universit6 Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France
Agents of change is unlikely to capture the interest of those with a casual interest in technology transfer. They will mainly be lost through poor writing. Although the style of writing is intended to be light and the author makes extensive use of anecdotes and case studies, I did not find the book at all pleasant to read. The organization is not obvious and much of the writing is turgid. For example, the first paragraph of page 73 sports the phrase 'due to' no less than three times. I am convinced that the section 'Residual resistance' on page 144 is totally out of place. To make matters worse, the print is small and smudgy. While these points may seem trivial, I found that the quality of writing seriously interfered with my understanding of the book and, at £36.40, I think a buyer deserves a better quality book than this. Those with a serious interest in technology transfer are likely to find the book pitched too low to sustain a high level of attention. For example, the section on cost-benefits analysis may be considered naive from an accounting point of view. The informal and difficult style of writing at times conceals the author's valuable experience and makes her observations seem trite. This is exacerbated by the use of trivial diagrams where none might have been less distracting. The actual amount of technical information about computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools, particularly Excelerator, is surprisingly small. I would not necessarily consider that a bad point, however. There is a class of reader for whom I believe this book will be indispensable, no matter how flawed I perceive it to be. This is the person who is engaged in their first essay in formal technology transfer. The technology transfer project need not be restricted to the area of CASE tools, either. For this reader, Agents of change is worth wading through to get at the valuable information and advice which is in it. As Edward Yourdon points out in the introduction to Agents of change, technology transfer may be the data-processing profession's biggest problem. One thing the author certainly got right is her emphasis on the human, political, and organizational aspects of technology transfer. It is the greatest pity, however, that the author did not 'take a leaf from her own experience and write a book which would help transfer the technology of technology transfer a bit better. M F SMITH Colwyn Bay, UK
245
This book, however, is one I asked the editor to allow me to review. Technology transfer is a subject of vital importance to the entire practice of computing. It is perhaps the profession's weakest point. Barbara Bouldin's credentials in the subject are impeccable and her experience is profound. I thought that this would be a book that I could not afford to miss. Once again, though, I am sorry to say that I was disappointed. I believe that all computing practitioners need an awareness of the subject of technology transfer. Unfortunately,
Issues in software engineering education addressed Issues in software engineering education R Fairley and P Freeman (eds) Springer-Verlag (1989) 595pp DM88.00 hardback Software engineering education is, for people who have to assume this task, a source of multiple interrogations for which experience sharing is extremely valuable: at which level should we realise this training course? Which are the prerequisites? What program should we establish? What are the right concepts to teach? How can we demonstrate that they are the right concepts? How can we most efficiently teach the techniques? Which tools should we use? What part of the whole should we reserve for the project? How should it be organized? This book provides interesting answers to all these questions. It was compiled from papers accepted by the program committee of the 1987 Conference on Software Engineering Education held in Monroeville, PA, USA. During the conference, some papers were not presented orally, to stimulate discussions among the attendees. For these papers, the book contains, in addition, a synopsis by the author and the associated question-and-answer session. The described experiences cover academic education at undergraduate and graduate levels as well as industrial education and training. Readers will also find reports on collaborative academic and industry approaches and a discussion on the role of Ada in teaching specifications, programming, and software engineering concepts. The great convergence of the rapporteurs' conclusions and the uniformity of approaches in the different organizations was surprising. For undergraduate software engineering courses, teachers want to train their students with parallelism, black box,
vol 33 no 3 april 1991
concurrency control, reusability, abstract types and modular conception concepts. They need tool boxes, including compiler, text editor, syntax-directed editor, interpreter, linker, symbolic debugger, and dynamic analyser and teach their students how to write the different reports on a project. Graduatelevel software engineering education students must have at least one year of software development experience. Teachers need to have many sophisticated tools and set up control quality procedures. Industrial education and training are established with academic collaboration to avoid teaching existing techniques and methods limited to the enterprise's requirements. Whatever level and place, a great part of the course (approximately 50%) is spared for designing and realisation of a three-to-eight student team involved in real projects, set up, for most of them, with industrials. Concerning the use of Ada in the courses, it seems this language was competitive with Modula2, and it has to convince the university community to change programming teaching purposes. Let me remark that presented papers contain detailed programs and lists of tools and books used, but it is regrettable that attendees have not discussed enough development methods recommended for the projects. I would finish the presentation of a book that I recommend, without reservation, to all people concerned with software engineering education, with a slight criticism: it would have been better to put synopsis and question-and-answer sessions just after the relevant papers rather than to collect them at the beginning of chapters. M J BLIN Universit6 Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France
Agents of change is unlikely to capture the interest of those with a casual interest in technology transfer. They will mainly be lost through poor writing. Although the style of writing is intended to be light and the author makes extensive use of anecdotes and case studies, I did not find the book at all pleasant to read. The organization is not obvious and much of the writing is turgid. For example, the first paragraph of page 73 sports the phrase 'due to' no less than three times. I am convinced that the section 'Residual resistance' on page 144 is totally out of place. To make matters worse, the print is small and smudgy. While these points may seem trivial, I found that the quality of writing seriously interfered with my understanding of the book and, at £36.40, I think a buyer deserves a better quality book than this. Those with a serious interest in technology transfer are likely to find the book pitched too low to sustain a high level of attention. For example, the section on cost-benefits analysis may be considered naive from an accounting point of view. The informal and difficult style of writing at times conceals the author's valuable experience and makes her observations seem trite. This is exacerbated by the use of trivial diagrams where none might have been less distracting. The actual amount of technical information about computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools, particularly Excelerator, is surprisingly small. I would not necessarily consider that a bad point, however. There is a class of reader for whom I believe this book will be indispensable, no matter how flawed I perceive it to be. This is the person who is engaged in their first essay in formal technology transfer. The technology transfer project need not be restricted to the area of CASE tools, either. For this reader, Agents of change is worth wading through to get at the valuable information and advice which is in it. As Edward Yourdon points out in the introduction to Agents of change, technology transfer may be the data-processing profession's biggest problem. One thing the author certainly got right is her emphasis on the human, political, and organizational aspects of technology transfer. It is the greatest pity, however, that the author did not 'take a leaf from her own experience and write a book which would help transfer the technology of technology transfer a bit better. M F SMITH Colwyn Bay, UK
245