Textbooks

As you may have seen from visiting the bookstore, we'll be using a number of books in this course. Why? Because there's no good standard textbook for the type of course we teach here at Grinnell. Most "software engineering" textbooks are designed for either software engineers, or students at schools with much larger curricula in computer science. The books I've selected for the course span a number of issues in CS.

Bentley, Jon (1986). Programming pearls. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
Bentley, Jon (1988). More programming pearls. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

Two of the best books I know on general issues in programming. Old, but not dated.

Flanagan, David (1 997). Java in a Nutshell, Second Edition. O'Reilly and Associates, Cambridge, MA.

Selected as a good general Java reference. I've also made the expanded version of this textbook a recommended reference. The expanded version is good for those of you who like electronic books, and contains much more information than the basic edition.

Humphrey, Watts S. (1997). Introduction to the Personal Software Process. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

A general guide to one set of processes appropriate for most software engineers. We'll be using this text to help us develop better skills in estimating and keeping track of the times and costs associated with software development.

Winograd, Terry (1996). Bringing Design to Software. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

One of the better books on software design, rather than software engineering. Helps you consider user interface issues, overall design issues, and much much more.