Since the emergence of SW engineering in the 1960s, the size, pervasiveness, and complexity of software and software intensive systems have increased by several orders of magnitude. The Nidiffer article illustrates this by noting that the size of aircraft software systems in the 1960s approximated 1,000 lines of code while aircraft systems built in 2000 contained more than six million lines of code. Additionally, both Boehm and Nidiffer cite the graph shown in Figure 1 which illustrates that the pervasiveness of software within aircraft systems has increased from less than 10% in the 1960s to 80% in 2000. We know that increases in software size reflect, as well as contribute to, increased complexity, which, in turn, has contributed to pushing delivery and costs well beyond targeted schedules and budgets.
This issue of Software Tech News (STN) contains articles that look at the future of Software Engineering from a variety of perspectives.
