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Capturing where we are today through a tour of yesterday's achievements and helping us better understand the evolution of computing technology, this book recounts the experiences of those who formed and functioned in the "Pioneering Era." In the Beginning: Recollections of Software Pioneers records the stories of computing's past enabling today's professionals to improve on the realities of yesterday.
The stories in this book clearly show modern concepts such as data abstraction, modularity, and structured approaches date much earlier in the field than their appearance in academic literature. These stories help capture the true evolution. The book illustrates human experiences and industry turning points through personal recollections of the pioneers themselves.
List of contents
Preface.
1. Introduction.
2. Before the Beginning: The Pre-Software Era.
Life Before Software, A Few Reminiscences (David Myers).
3. Setting the Stage: Three Eras of Software History.
Software Reflections--A Pioneer's View of the History of the Field (Robert L. Glass).
4. Making the Market: Vendor Pioneers.
Reflections on a Software Life (Watts S. Humphrey).
How I Watched In Pain as IBM Outsmarted UNIVAC (Norman F. Schneidewind).
5. Solving Problems: Application Pioneers.
Aerospace.
An Early Application Generator and Other Recollections (Barry Boehm).
View From Below (Robert N. Britcher).
Almost Thirty Years as a Change Agent (Donald J. Reifer).
Information Systems.
Leo, the First Business Computer: A Personal Experience (Frank Land).
Compu-THEN: Before Megabytes (Ben G. Matley).
Academic Computer Centers
Four Anecdotes (Harold Joseph Highland).
Consulting
The Prolonged Metamorphosis of a Software Engineer (Robert L. Baber).
6. Pursuing Progress: Academic/Laboratory Pioneers.
Autobiographical Snippets (John M. Bennett).
Closing the Circle (Bruce I. Blum).
Before Memory Was Virtual (Peter J. Denning).
Growing Up with Software Tools (Raymond C. Houghton).
7. After the Beginning: Conclusions.
Biographical Sketches of the Contributors.
Index.
About the author
Robert L. Glass is the author of twenty-eight books on computing subjects, including the bestselling Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering. He has written nearly one hundred articles on computing subjects and has served as a columnist for three leading publications: Communications of the ACM, IEEE Software, and Information Systems Management.
