Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach

I had the 4th edition of the book back in college. When I started studying for the CSDP (Certified Software Development Professional) Exam, I ordered the 6th edition. The 6th edition is a huge improvement over the 4th. This book covers just about everything you need to know on the subject of software engineering. Great book, great reading. Applying the concepts on the job will help out tremendously in your career.

I'm not a student. I am software development manager and have over 20 years of real-world experience developing sophisticated banking and financial applications. I have one of the original first addition books, and I have to say that this book was critical to my learning software engineering principles. The criticism of this book are unfounded in my opinion. This book contains the critical elements to implement SE principles. The complaints seem to be from students and they seem to think it is a poor text book. Well, that's probably a good sign, as good text books are usually worthless for real world examples, and books that give you worthwhile information aren't usually good text books. If you look through all the 5 star reviews, they are from Software Engineers working in the field. If you look at all the 1 star reviews, they are all from students who, frankly don't know what really is important and what isn't when it comes to developing quality software. (I know I didn't when i was a student). That alone gives speaks volumes about the book. Some said that Code Complete is a better book. Where do you think the authors of Code Complete got their material? This book is first published 15 years before Code Complete. Code Complete is a good book, but doesn't explain the "why" of things, whereas this book does. Studying this book will give you the "why" on certain principles so you can enact them to whatever situation you are in. It is not an "ABC" book on how to do "XYZ." The theories and examples on the programmer productivity were very valuable to me, and I have saved me countless hours and money on developers time because I learned how to maximize programmer productivity. This book is the framework on how to development high-quality software. I can speak from experience that the software I've been respopnsible for developing, using the priniciples I learned from this book, has been excellent. The software failure rates I have experienced are far lower than industry averages. I have some applications that have run for many years without any software failures. It can be done, but this doesn't garantee your success. This book shows you the blueprint. You still need experienced developers to be able to create high-quality code, but only by following the principles laid out in the book. Perhaps if all you students had to see all the poorly written software in use in the world, you would appreciate this book more. This book is well worth it the price. If you plan on having anything to do with software development, keep this book, and don't sell back to a book store. I ordered the latest version and read it, and Pressman has done a good job in keeping up with the latest in software engineering. With out a doubt, the book is worth the price. My copy has paid for itself many times over.

I bought the 2nd edition of this book over 12 years ago. The fact that I've now bought three versions of the book over that period and keep all of them on my bookshelf says a lot about how useful I find it in my day job as a software designer/consultant and project manager. I've got a big collection of books on SE but this is the one I go to first for a quick introduction to some new (or even old!) technique.I doubt if it would be a good college book but for a practicing engineer who wants a book that keeps pace with trends while remembering the best of the past this is the one. Like the title says its a practitioner's book, one to be used every day not just to pass an exam.

An industry standard that no software professional can claim to be well-read without. I was pleased to see (finally) the addition of two chapters on Formal Methods in Software Engineering. This was an unfortunate omission in the third edition that is now corrected. The price is a bit overinflated, as with most texts on the subject. Makes for an excellent companion, when compared and contrasted with other current industry texts.

Pressman gives an excellent encyclopedic coverage of all the essentials of Software Engineering. I would say every s/w company should have a couple of copies for reference, and every s/w engineer should study it. However, I bought this book (3rd edition) for a list price of $42.50 in 1993. Now it lists for nearly double that (same edition)! This after 4 years of 3% inflation!? And of course the 4th edition is $10 more... why? As an aside, I think this book would make an excellent companion to Steve McConnell's "Rapid Development": they cover many of the same topics but in very different ways.<BR