Survival Crib Notes: NASA's Success Checklist
- 9 Dos and 8 Don'ts for software project success, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. (Sample chapter from Steve McConnell's book Software Project Survival Guide.)
- http://www.stevemcconnell.com/sgcrib.htm

Classic Mistakes Enumerated
- Description of 36 ineffective development practices: people-related, process-related, product-related, technology-related. (Sample chapter from Steve McConnell's book Rapid Development.)
- http://www.stevemcconnell.com/rdenum.htm

Building bug-free O-O software: An introduction to Design by Contract
- Advanced use of assertions for clearer specifications and greater software reliability. By OO guru Bertrand Meyer, creator of Eiffel.
- http://archive.eiffel.com/doc/manuals/technology/contract/page.html

Introducing Demeter and its Laws
- Adaptive Programming - specifying the connections between objects as loosely as possible. Makes programs more flexible, more resilient to change, and more adaptable to varying configurations of classes within a given domain
- http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/docs/demeter-intro.html

The Programmers' Stone
- Recapturing, exploring and celebrating the Art of Computer Programming.
- http://www.reciprocality.org/Reciprocality/r0/

Major Causes of Software Project Failures
- Lorin J. May; Crosstalk, July 1998. Based on interviews with software consultants and practitioners who were asked to provide "autopsies" of failed projects with which they have been acquainted.
- http://stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/1998/07/causes.asp

Large Software Systems - Back to Basics
- John Evans; Crosstalk, June 2000. The importance of software architecture, and related items such as unambiguous requirements and coding standards.
- http://stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2000/06/evans.html

What Do Users Want? Engineering Usability into Software
- User-Centered Design. Simple approaches for delivering smaller, simpler systems that better serve the needs of users.
- http://foruse.com/articles/whatusers.htm

Sure It Works, But Is It Beautiful: The Relationship Between Software Aesthetics and Quality
- Some aspects of the relationship between quality and aesthetics (beauty) in software, using architecture analogies.
- http://www.chc-3.com/pub/beautifulsoftware.htm

Seven Steps to Test Automation Success
- This paper presents seven key steps: improve the testing process, define requirements, prove the concept, champion product testability, design for sustainability, plan for deployment, and face the challenges of success.
- http://www.io.com/~wazmo/papers/seven_steps.html

The Therac-25 Accidents
- Case study of a well known software error.
- http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf

High-Pressure Steam Engines and Computer Software
- Software safety. Parallels between the early development of high-pressure steam engines and software engineering that we can apply to the use of computers in complex systems.
- http://sunnyday.mit.edu/steam.pdf

Heavy Rotation
- For business software, faster-cheaper can be better too.
- http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/w_fiefer_2.html

Nine Steps to Delivering Defect-Free Software
- By a software developer and consultant with over 30 years experience.
- http://www.tenberry.com/errfree/steps.htm

Successful Engineering Management: 7 Lessons Learned
- People management advice for technical people.
- http://www.jrothman.com/Papers/usefulmgmtideas.html

Orphans Preferred
- Characteristics of software developers - personality type, demographics, age, education, attitudes.
- http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991222/mcconnell_01.htm

Principles of Good GUI Design
- Describes the basic rules for all good interfaces - the cardinal dos and don'ts.
- http://axp16.iie.org.mx/Monitor/v01n03/ar_ihc2.htm

Seven Principles Of Software Development
- Emphasizes "soft" issues - attitude, approach.
- http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SevenPrinciplesOfSoftwareDevelopment

Classic Testing Mistakes
- The role of testing, Planning the complete testing effort, Personnel issues, The tester at work, Test automation, Code coverage
- http://www.testing.com/writings/classic/mistakes.html

The Many Dimensions of the Software Process
- Explores the importance and purpose of software process and quality.
- http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds6-4/software.html

Lessons Learned -- Current Problems
- Technical and managerial best/worst practices. Based on study of US Department of Defense software projects.
- http://www.spmn.com/lessons.html

On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules
- One of the classic articles leading to modern software engineering, by D.L. Parnas.
- http://www.acm.org/classics/may96/