Summary

David L. Parnas is one of the grandmasters of software engineering. His academic research and industrial collaborations have exerted far-reaching influence on software design and development. His groundbreaking writings capture the essence of the innovations, controversies, challenges, and solutions of the software industry. Together, they constitute the foundation for modern software theory and practice. This book contains 33 of his most influential papers in various areas of software engineering. Leading thinkers in software engineering have contributed short introductions to each paper to provide the historical context surrounding each papers conception and writing. Software Fundamentals: Collected Papers by David L. Parnas is a practical guide to key software engineering concepts that belongs in the library of every software professional. It introduces and explains such seminal topics as: Relational and tabular documentation Information hiding as the basis for modular program construction Abstract interfaces that provide services without revealing implementation Program families for the efficient development of multiple software versions The status of software engineering as a