The history of computer science began long before the modern discipline of computer science that emerged in the twentieth century, and hinted at in the centuries prior. The progression, from mechanical inventions and mathematical theories towards the modern concepts and machines, formed a major academic field and the basis of a massive worldwide industry.
The earliest known tool for use in computation was the abacus, and it was thought to have been invented in Babylon circa 2400 BCE. Its original style of usage was by lines drawn in sand with pebbles. This was the first known computer and most advanced system of calculation known to date - preceding Greek methods by 2,000 years. Abaci of a more modern design are still used as calculation tools today.
In the history of software engineering the software engineering has evolved steadily from its founding days in the 1940s until today in the 2010s. Applications have evolved continuously. The ongoing goal to improve technologies and practices, seeks to improve the productivity of practitioners and the quality of applications to users.
The Pioneering Era
Computer hardware was application-specific. Scientific and business tasks needed different machines. Due to the need to frequently translate old software to meet the needs of new machines, high-order languages like FORTRAN, COBOL, and ALGOL were developed. Hardware vendors gave away systems software for free as hardware could not be sold without software. A few companies sold the service of building custom software but no software companies were selling packaged software.
1945 to 1965: The origins
The term software engineering first appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Programmers have always known about civil, electrical, and computer engineering and debated what engineering might mean for software.
The NATO Science Committee sponsored two conferences on software engineering in 1968 (Garmisch, Germany — see conference report) and 1969, which gave the field its initial boost. Many believe these conferences marked the official start of the profession of software engineering.
1965 to 1985: The software crisis
Software engineering was spurred by the so-called software crisis of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, which identified many of the problems of software development. Many software projects ran over budget and schedule. Some projects caused property damage. A few projects caused loss of life. The software crisis was originally defined in terms of productivity, but evolved to emphasize quality. Some used the term software crisis to refer to their inability to hire enough qualified programmers.
1985 to 1989: No silver bullet
For decades, solving the software crisis was paramount to researchers and companies producing software tools. Seemingly, they trumpeted every new technology and practice from the 1970s to the 1990s as a silver bullet to solve the software crisis. Tools, discipline, formal methods, process, and professionalism were touted as silver bullets:
- Tools: Especially emphasized were tools: Structured programming, object-oriented programming, CASE tools, Ada, documentation, and standards were touted as silver bullets.
- Discipline: Some pundits argued that the software crisis was due to the lack of discipline of programmers.
- Formal methods: Some believed that if formal engineering methodologies would be applied to software development, then production of software would become as predictable an industry as other branches of engineering. They advocated proving all programs correct.
- Process: Many advocated the use of defined processes and methodologies like the Capability Maturity Model.
- Professionalism: This led to work on a code of ethics, licenses, and professionalism.
1990 to 1999: Prominence of the Internet
The rise of the Internet led to very rapid growth in the demand for international information display/e-mail systems on the World Wide Web. Programmers were required to handle illustrations, maps, photographs, and other images, plus simple animation, at a rate never before seen, with few well-known methods to optimize image display/storage (such as the use of thumbnail images).
The growth of browser usage, running on the HTML language, changed the way in which information-display and retrieval was organized. The widespread network connections led to the growth and prevention of international computer viruses on MS Windows computers, and the vast proliferation of spam e-mail became a major design issue in e-mail systems, flooding communication channels and requiring semi-automated pre-screening. Keyword-search systems evolved into web-based search engines, and many software systems had to be re-designed, for international searching, depending on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques.
2000 to Present: Lightweight Methodologies
With the expanding demand for software in many smaller organizations, the need for inexpensive software solutions led to the growth of simpler, faster methodologies that developed running software, from requirements to deployment, quicker & easier. The use of rapid-prototyping evolved to entire lightweight methodologies, such as Extreme Programming (XP), which attempted to simplify many areas of software engineering, including requirements gathering and reliability testing for the growing, vast number of small software systems
Software engineering today
Software engineering today
The profession is trying to define its boundary and content. The Software Engineering Body of Knowledge SWEBOK has been tabled as an ISO standard during 2006 (ISO/IEC TR 19759).
In 2006, Money Magazine and Salary.com rated software engineering as the best job in America in terms of growth, pay, stress levels, flexibility in hours and working environment, creativity, and how easy it is to enter and advance in the field.
Prominent figures in the history of software engineering
- Charles Bachman (born 1924) is particularly known for his work in the area of databases.
- Fred Brooks (born 1931)) best-known for managing the development of OS/360.
- Peter Chen, known for the development of entity-relationship modeling.
- Edsger Dijkstra (1930-2002) developed the framework for proper programming.
- David Parnas (born 1941) developed the concept of information hiding in modular programming.
