Decline and Fall of the American Programmer is a book written by Edward Yourdon

Edward Yourdon

Edward Nash Yourdon is an American software engineer, computer consultant, author and lecturer, and pioneer in the software engineering methodology...

 in 1992. It was addressed to American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 programmers and software organizations of the 1990s, warning that they were about to be driven out of business by programmers in other countries who could produce software more cheaply and with higher quality. Yourdon claimed that American software organizations could only retain their edge by using technologies such as ones he described in the book. (These are listed in the chapter outline below.) Yourdon gave examples of how non-American — specifically Indian

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and Japanese

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 — companies were making use of these technologies to produce high-quality software.

In the follow-up book Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer

Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer

Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer is a book written by Edward Yourdon in 1996. It is the sequel to Decline and Fall of the American Programmer. In the original, written at the beginning of the '90s, Yourdon warned American programmers that their business was not sustainable against...

, published in 1996, Yourdon reversed some of his original predictions based upon changes in the state of the software industry.

Chapter outline

• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Lure of the Silver Bullet
  Silver bullet
  In folklore, the silver bullet is supposed to be the only kind of bullet for firearms that is effective against a werewolf, witch, or other monsters...
  
  
• 3. Peopleware
• 4. Software Processes
• 5. Software Methodologies
• 6. CASE
  Computer-aided software engineering
  Computer-aided software engineering is the scientific application of a set of tools and methods to a software system which is meant to result in high-quality, defect-free, and maintainable software products...
  
  
• 7. Software Metrics
• 8. Software Quality Assurance
  Software quality assurance
  Software quality assurance consists of a means of monitoring the software engineering processes and methods used to ensure quality. The methods by which this is accomplished are many and varied, and may include ensuring conformance to one or more standards, such as ISO 9000 or a model such as...
  
  
• 9. Software Reusability
• 10. Software Re-Engineering
• 11. Future Trends
• A. Software Technology in India
• B. The Programmer's Bookshelf

Release details

• 1992, United States of America, Prentice Hall
  Prentice Hall
  Prentice Hall is a major educational publisher. It is an imprint of Pearson Education, Inc., based in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6-12 and higher-education market. Prentice Hall distributes its technical titles through the Safari...
  
  , ISBN 0-13-203670-3, 1992; hardback
• 1993, United States of America, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-191958-X, June 16, 1993; paperback

See also

• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a non-fiction history book written by English historian Edward Gibbon and published in six volumes. Volume I was published in 1776, and went through six printings. Volumes II and III were published in 1781; volumes IV, V, VI in 1788–89...
  
  , to which this book's title is a reference
• Peopleware
  Peopleware
  Peopleware — Productive Projects and Teams is a popular 1987 book on Peopleware, written by software consultants Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, on the inside world of software development. It examines the conflicts between individual work perspective and corporate ideology...
  
  , by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister

External links

• Review of Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer