This Article   Bibliographic References   Add to:  December 1979
(vol. 12 no. 12) pp. 6-7 J.D. Gannon, University of Maryland
Software engineering is an effort to reduce the cost of
producing software by raising programming productivity and
lowering maintenance effort and to increase the benefits of
software by extending application areas and improving service.
Human factors considerations can have a major impact on the
software development process and the quality of the software
produced. High-level languages have increased programmer
productivity by removing from the programmer the burden of
remembering what values are in what register and placing it on a
software system which is much more suited to managing detail.
Other programming methodologies and tools have been developed to
reduce the cost of producing software: design methodologies,
structured programming, chief programmer teams, disciplined
coding conventions, etc. The efficacy of these software aids has
been demonstrated mostly by case studies. The