Resources: Software Engineering
Brooks in the Mythical Man-Month writes "The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination." Software, which allows us to control everything from a bedside alarm clock to a deep space mission is fiendish stuff. We have to be so correct, so disciplined in what we write to ensure the correct outcomes.
Like all engineering disciplines, Software demands that we consider functionality, performance, reliability and the ease with which humans can use the software. All these factors must be properly addressed before the software can be considered successful. If we get it wrong the consequences can be very bad. Witness the Horizon IT system, an accounting software system used by the UK Post Office, developed by Fujitsu. The fallout from that scandal is ongoing - people committed suicide on the basis of wrongful convictions. Australia had a similar disaster called Robodebt overseen by Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Christian Porter - all Liberal party politicians.
When we get the software right, the results can be outstanding. The fly-by-wire system in Airbus aeroplanes, the imaging system in the James Webb telescope, the fact that the world wide web exists and now a new age of artificial intelligence is upon us - all great things. We just have to work really hard to get it right.
Paper
Visualising the performance of a large transaction processing computer system
December 2000
Being able to monitor and assess the performance of a large transaction processing system is an essential activity during the commissioning and acceptance phases of the system's development and then subsequently when the system enters operational service.
Computing and Control Engineering Journal
Rupert Brown
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Paper
Improving the Production and Presentation of Safety Cases through the use of Intranet Technology
1998
A Safety Case requires that a large number of links are made between requirements, analysis and design documentation, and the safety analysis itself. This paper examines how basic intranet technology may be used to capture links between documents and potentially make easier the development, maintenance and understanding of a Safety Case.
Rupert Brown
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Paper
Quality and Productivity - Holistic Software Product Assurance
1996
This paper illustrates one aspect of the Holistic software product assurance approach using data from a project in the space industry. It examines the misconception that quality and productivity are alternatives and proposes a six step holistic approach.
William Blackburn, Rupert Brown, Michael Parsons.
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Paper
The Practical Application of Safety Techniques on an Ada based Project
1995
Two techniques are used to analyse a computer based system from a safety perspective. The first identifies those user requirements which encapsulate the safety-related nature of the system. The second technique seeks to examine the effect of failures of system components as they emerge from the design activity.
Rupert Brown
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