
Software Engineering (1968) [pdf] - Austin_Conlon
http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/nato1968.PDF
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drallison
This is a classic report covering the NATO conference on "Software
Engineering". EVERYONE involved with computers and computer systems would
benefit from reading it. The authors did more than compile the papers
presented, they captured comments and observations made outside the formal
conference, and then created an integrated report. Even today, decades later,
the report seems relevant and fresh. And somehow it seems that the attendees
were smarter and more prescient that attendees today.

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stevan
One part that interests me is the discussion about simulation testing in
"4.3.3. FEEDBACK THROUGH MONITORING AND SIMULATION" (p. 31 in the PDF).

Alan Perlis says:

    
    
      "I'd like to read three sentences to close this issue.
      
        1. A software system can best be designed if the testing is interlaced with
           the designing instead of being used after the design.
      
        2. A simulation which matches the requirements contains the control which
           organizes the design of the system.
      
        3. Through successive repetitions of this process of interlaced testing and
           design the model ultimately becomes the software system itself. I think
           that it is the key of the approach that has been suggested, that there is
           no such question as testing things after the fact with simulation models,
           but that in effect the testing and the replacement of simulations with
           modules that are deeper and more detailed goes on with the simulation
           model controlling, as it were, the place and order in which these things
           are done."
    

What happened to that technique? I tried to look at the papers that cite Brian
Randell's "Towards a methodology of computer systems design" paper, which is
the basis for the discussion (and which you can find later in the same PDF),
but couldn't really find more than a couple of papers and they didn't go so
deep into the details.

It seems that simulation testing only recently resurfaced with Will Wilson's
2014 Strange Loop talk about how FoundationDB is tested. In fact they seems to
have done exactly what Alan Perlis said in 1968, but they never mention any
source of inspiration/prior work. Was the technique independently
rediscovered, or had they in fact read the (in)famous 1968 NATO software
engineering report?

~~~
Xophmeister
Isn’t this just “agile” and TDD; 40-odd years ahead of its time?

~~~
gen_greyface
TDD- Test Driven Design, yes

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jbn
A classic reference, which used to be included in
[http://sunnyday.mit.edu/16.355/](http://sunnyday.mit.edu/16.355/) if I recall
correctly.

