Book organization

Before we look at the book’s organization, a quick word on its title.

Evolution

Biology is the scientific study of life. While it has a broad scope, there is a unifying theory:

On a high level, evolution works as follows:

graph LR
  P[Parents &\noffspring] --Limited resources\nensure only the\nfittest survive--> Survivors
  Survivors --Survivors form\nthe new population--> Population
  Population --Parents produce\noffspring with\nsmall changes\nin traits--> Offspring
  Offspring --Offspring expand\nthe population--> P

Note how this process resembles the scientific method:

• The population is nature’s current theory on how to best adapt to their environment.
• Offspring inherit traits from their parents, but with small changes via mutation and, for species with sexual reproduction, crossover. In other words, each new generation contains several hypotheses on how to better adapt to the environment.
• Since resources are usually limited, only the fittest survive. Nature implicitly conducts experiments to falsify its hypotheses.
• The fittest organisms make up the new population, or current theory of how best to adapt to the environment.

The scientific theory of evolution rests on two pillars:

1. Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in traits [Darwin1859].
2. Heredity of traits is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring with some changes [Mendel1866], [Fisher1930].

The two pillars of evolution were fist brought together in the seminal book Evolution: The Modern Synthesis [Huxley1948].

The current book similarly aspires to bring together the various pillars of software engineering.

The rest of this book attempts to answer the question of how to make software development a real engineering discipline.

First we’ll look into each of the SWEBOK knowledge areas and see how much they conform to the engineering approach. Then we’ll see if we can synthesize an actual engineering process out of their combination.

Let’s get started.