Annotated Bibliography and References - The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - page 435

Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs . Simon and Schuster, New York, 2011.
In addition to being an excellent biography of one of the great pioneers of com-
puting and software, this topic is a fascinating account of the emergence of the
computer and software industry to global importance. It is an excellent source of
historical information about the rise of the Silicon Valley region from the 1970s
through the 2000s.
All of the big names of software (Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and Ken Groves)
are included, as are some of their actual conversations with Steve Jobs. This topic
is strongly recommended for anyone who is interested in software and computing
history and also interested in the fascinating history of Silicon Valley. In fact, the
entire software industry is reflected in the topic.
The main focus is on Steve Jobs and his companies, including Apple, NeXT,
and Pixar. However, Steve interacted with dozens of other companies and hun-
dreds of software luminaries. He also had interesting relationships with politicians;
movie stars; musicians such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan; and the California
Buddhist community, including the Zen monk Kobun Chino, who performed
Steve's wedding service. Jobs comes across as brilliant but decidedly eccentric and
also not a very kind person to some of his employees and friends.
This topic was a useful source of background information for the chapters on
the 1970s through 2000s.
Jones, Capers. Assessment and Control of Software Risks . Prentice Hall,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1994.
This older book is included in part because it was an attempt at a cross-dis-
ciplinary experiment between medicine and software. The format of the topic was
an exact replica of the medical book Control of Communicable Diseases in Man ,
published by the U.S. Public Health Service.
As it happens, medical practice has many lessons for us in software engin-
eering, including diagnostic techniques, immunization against problems, and also
control of communicable problems. The format of the medical book was a good
model for a book on software risks, and the sections on epidemiology, identifica-
tion, diagnosis, and treatment are relevant to both fields. Of course, software pro-
jects do not have truly communicable diseases such as smallpox so that they re-
quire isolation. However, many of the problems that occur with software projects
are clearly “contagious” because they occur with hundreds of other projects.