Ivan Marsic Rutgers University
ii
skipped if necessary. But you will not benefit the most by reading it that way. I tried to avoid
“botanical” approach, telling you in detail what is here and what is there in software engineering,
so you can start from any point and walk it over in any way. Instead, this book takes an
evolutionary approach, where new topics systematically build on previous topics.
The text follows this outline.
Chapter 2 introduces object-oriented software engineering. It is short enough to be covered in few
weeks, yet it provides sufficient knowledge for students to start working on a first version of their
software product. Appendix G complements the material of Chapter 2 by showing a practical
application of the presented concepts. In general, this knowledge may be sufficient for amateur
software development, on relatively small and non-mission-critical projects.
Chapters 3 through 5 offer more detailed coverage of the topics introduced in Chapter 2. They are
intended to provide the foundation for iterative development of high-quality software products.
Chapters 6 – 8 provide advanced topics which can be covered selectively, if time permits, or in a
follow-up course dedicated to software engineering of Web applications.
This is not a programming text, but several appendices are provided as reference material for
special topics that will inevitably arise in many software projects.
Examples, Code, and Solved Problems
I tried to make this book as practical as possible by using realistic examples and working through
their solutions. I usually find it difficult to bridge the gap between an abstract design and coding.
Hence, I include a great deal of code. The code is in the Java programming language, which
brings me to another point.
Different authors favor different languages and students often complain about having to learn yet
another language on not having learned enough languages. I feel that the issue of selecting a
programming language for a software engineering textbook is artificial. Programming language is
a tool and the software engineer should master a “toolbox” of languages so to be able to choose
the tool that best suits the task at hand.
Every chapter (except for Chapters 1 and 9) is accompanied with a set of problems. Solutions to
most problems can be found on the back of this book, starting on page 523.
Design problems are open-ended, without a unique or “correct” solution, so the reader is welcome
to question all the designs offered in this book. I have myself gone through many versions of each
design, and will probably change them again in the future, as I learn more and think more. At the
least, the designs in this book represent a starting point to critique and improve.
Additional information about team projects and online links to related topics can be found at the
book website: http://www.ece.rutgers.edu/~marsic/books/SE/ .
