Here are some stories about software engineering. These stories are here for all to read and enjoy. Please send mail to me if you use them in classes or circulate them through your company. I'd also like a note if you link to these pages, so that I can let you know if they are moved, renamed, or improved.

Three Questions About Each Bug You Find

Published in ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, vol 14 no 5 July 1989 pages 62-63. (07/89)

Cleaning up the Basement in the Dark

Published in ACM Software Engineering Notes, April 1992. (04/92)

It Can Be Done

Published in IEEE Computer, May 1994. (05/94)

The Evolution of My Thinking

Fads in software engineering. (06/95)

Nasty Question

What do you do to make your product high quality? The four steps to quality. (06/95)

A Few Minutes' Discussion

The conversation we should have had. (11/11/94)

Notebooks

What really happened? (07/95)

NASA's $30,000 drops of Epoxy

A different Hubble story. (07/95)

The Risks of Electronic Communication

Advice to new electronic mail and netnews users. (06/95)

Painting the Wall

A person I didn't hire. (06/95)

When the River Is Polluted

Find the root cause. (06/95)

Structure Marking

How the Multics directory structure was defended. (06/95)

Perfection Pills

A pharmacological approach to quality. (06/95)

Counterpoint

A lesson from John Cage. (11/11/94)

Check Marks

Observed high quality and how to do it. (06/95)

Software Engineering Proverbs

Collected graffiti. (11/08/23)

Software Engineering Reading List

Some favorite books and papers on programming and quality. (05/24/24) updated

"The Multics System Programming Process"

An invited paper (06/78) for COMPCON 78 about our team's development process. Reprinted in the IEEE Tutorial on Software Maintenance.

Software Engineering Comix

Seven b&w comic strips for programmers. (7/24/95)

Hellandizing

A technique for testing server programs. (1988)

Gauss's Algorithm

A date-related bug. (06/12/99)

Management Tactics

One step toward changing the development culture. (2001)

The Bulgarian Lesson

How one group got started. (2001)

Van Vleck's Comb

Model, Policy, Procedure, Tool. (2002)

Interviewing and Hiring

Hiring people. (2004)

Darwin

The uses of theory. (2005)

Dumbo Management, Blender Management, Cargo Cults, and the Flying Trapeze

Thoughts on checklists. (2010)

Slide One

Effective Presentations. (2019)

Disasters

Software Disasters. Why? (12/01/18)

The Multics System Programming Process

Charlie Clingen and I wrote an invited paper for COMPCON 78 about the Multics development process. (06/78) It was reprinted in the IEEE Tutorial on Software Maintenance.

Multics Software Development Process

Our development process: who did what.

Multics Software Development Process History

How the Multics software development process evolved.