Decline Fall American Programmer

by Edward Yourdon

Book Overview

According to Edward Yourdon, software development may soon move out of the U.S. into software factories in a dozen countries unless U.S. software organizations exploit the key software technologies... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0132036703
• ISBN13: 9780132036702
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A 'must read ', but for historical reasons only

Five years after reading this book when it was first published, I bought a secondhand copy (as well as a copy of Rise and Resurrection) to take another look. Obviously, the American Programmer is in decline, so Ed Yourdan got that right. The question is whether the book has anything important to say to us today.This is a book about case tools. Anybody remember them? Yourdan's argument was that the willingness of Indian programmers to use case tools would enable them to produce good, cheap software at a fraction of the cost of that generated by American 'cowboys'. His strong advice for programmers in the US was to start using mechanistic methods, so that they could also start churning out code like cookies in a cookie factory.Most probably, Decline and Fall will remain an interesting book for students of computer science to read for many years into the future - not for what it got right, but for what it got wrong. Common wisdom today (which may become foolishness tomorrow) is that American Programmers can't hope to compete against people living in poor nations by trying to undercut them on cost, but only by using their native creativity and willingness to explore new frontiers to create truly new products. In other words, Yourdan correctly forsaw the future, but badly misjudged the solution.

Great book but a little scary

This is a wonderful and interesting book. Its a little scary with many cries of the sky is falling but seeing the current cut down in IT staffing levels and the number of projects being exported overseas I don't think that Yourdon was far off.

Tremendous insight into the software industry

I first read this book about five years ago, and loved it. Anyone in the software industry who sees being a software engineer as just "coding" should read this book. It provides insight into all areas of "software technology" and why they are important to software engineers.Of particular interest was the Peopleware chapter, which talks about how software engineers should be managed and treated, and the Programmer's Bookshelf appendix, which provided lots of great additional reading material.Overall, a really easy to read, one of a kind book.

A wonderful book full of insight

I read this book as a grad student is I.S. Management. Provides wonderful insight into how to and how not to manage IS. Chapter 8 is a must for any and all developers. Great insight into what wrong with U.S. IT professionals. Recommended for all IT professionals

A must read for all people in the software industry

Regardless of the title, this book is actually about what you can do to become a world-class organization. To quote a line from the book, "if your doing it right, quality is free." This is the book that tells you how to "do it right". Get it, read it, implement it.