Object Life Cycles: Modeling the World in States

A great step-by-step guide to producing reliable, robust, maintainable, working realtime systems effectively. Not for dimwits and slackers. For people serious about realime systems that have to make life or death decisions minute after minute, hour after hour, year after year. Should be on the main reference shelf of every one who develops such systems!

I teach the Shlaer Mellor methodology to high school students, as an independent study seminar. My typical student knows the basics of programming, but has no industrial experience, and has not developed any software engineering skills. By the time they finish their projects, they are generally ready to work in industry. My first student developed an ecosystem simulation. The finished product contained approximately 10,000 lines of C++ code, and had 3-post integration bugs, all of which were easily fixed. If you want to develop first-rate, bug free software, follow the guidlines in this book.