5th international conference on software engineering
Joseph Whelan · ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes · 1981
A somewhat languid state of software engineering was exhibited at the 5th International Conference held March [9][10][11][12] 1981, here in San Diego.There were few really new ideas.The situation seems to be that we are waiting for practitioners to use the concepts formulated over the last few years so that we can see if they really work.Much work is being done to study the effectiveness of various software engineering tools.However, few of the tools are complete, none of them cover all aspects of the process and most are little more than proposals or toy systems.Very few of the tools are in general use.The situation seems to be that each organization has one or two extremely powerful tools for some portion of the development process, but almost nothing for the rest of their efforts.A "tools fair" was held in conjunction with the conference.This provided an opportunity for vendors to demonstrate their software tools.I tried to see some of the tools, but there was hardly room to breathe, let alone walk from display to display, so I saw very little.From what I did see, I think such a tools fair could be very successful if more space and time (the exhibitors were changed daily) are provided.The following summarizes the presentations I attended.Two messages recurred throughout these presentations:i. Tools and methods do not replace thought.2. The use of tools, methods and concepts must be modified to fit the specific environment in whi~a they are used.We don't yet have "off-the-shelf" software engineering. SUMMARY OF PRESENTATIONS i. Tutorial on "Programming Proofs Produced Practically" given by D. BerryThis all-day tutorial presented a method of developing programs using program proving techniques.It did not describe or recommend formal proofs of programs.