Robert L. Glass

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Robert L. (Bob) Glass (born 1932) is an American software engineer and writer, known for his works on software engineering, especially on the measuring of the quality of software design[1] and his studies of the state of the art of software engineering research.[2][3]

Biography

Glass held his first job in computing in 1954. He worked from 1954 to 1957 in the aerospace industry at North American Aviation, from 1957 to 1965 at Aerojet-General Corp. and from 1965 to 1982 at Boeing Company, where he built software tools used by applications specialists.[4]

Between 1970 and 1972, Glass had worked on a tools-focused research grant at the University of Washington. From 1982 to 1987, he taught in the Software Engineering graduate program at Seattle University, and subsequently spent a year at the Software Engineering Institute.[4] Early 2000s he has been visiting professor at the Linköping University in Sweden and at the Griffith University in Queensland, Australia.[5] The Linkoping University awarded him a honorary PhD in 1995.[6]

He is the emeritus editor-in-chief of the Journal of Systems and Software[7] and also writes regular columns for Communications of the ACM and IEEE Software.[nb 1] In 1995 he was awarded an honorary Ph.D. from Linkoping University of Sweden,[9] and in 1999 he was named a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) professional society.[10] Using the pseudonym Miles Benson, Glass in the 1970's regularly wrote disguised stories of failed computing projects for industry publication Computerworld.[11]

After 45 years in the field Glass described himself as "my head is in the academic area of computing, but my heart is in its practice."[nb 2] Writing in IEEE Software in 2000, Glass criticized open-source software, predicting that it will not reach far, and "will be limited to one or a few cults emerging from a niche culture." Glass's basis for this bold prediction was that open-source software "goes against the grain of everything I know about the software field".[12]

Publications

Glass authored more than 200 papers[13] and 25 books. A selection:

  • 1977. The universal elixir and other computing projects which failed
  • 1978. Tales of computing folk : hot dogs and mixed nuts
  • 1979. Software reliability guidebook
  • 1979. Power of peonage
  • 1980. The second coming : more computing projects which failed. With "Sue deNim".
  • 1981. Software soliloquies
  • 1981. Software maintenance guidebook
  • 1983. Real-time software (edited by)
  • 1983. Computing catastrophes (compiled by)
  • 1988. Modern programming practices : a report from industry
  • 1988. Software communication skills
  • 1989. Software runaways
  • 1990. Measuring software design quality. With David N. Card.
  • 1991. Software conflict : essays on the art and science of software engineering
  • 1992. Measuring and motivating maintenance programmers. With Jerome B. Landsbaum.
  • 1995. Software creativity
  • 1996. ISO 9000 approach to building quality software. With Östen Oskarsson.
  • 1998. In the Beginning: Recollections of Software Pioneers. Editor. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, California.
  • 1999. Computing calamities : lessons learned from products, projects, and companies that failed.
  • 2001. ComputingFailure.com : war stories from the electronic revolution
  • 2003. Facts and fallacies of software engineering
  • 2006. Software Conflict 2.0
  • 2006. Software Creativity 2.0
  • 2011. The Dark Side of Software Engineering: Evil on Computing Projects

Notes

  1. Robert Glass wrote the "Loyal Opposition" column in the IEEE Software journal for years. His final column was: Glass, Robert L. "Goodbye!." [8]
  2. Attributed to Glass in Joseph Feller (2005, p. 517)

References

  1. Briand, Lionel C., Sandro Morasca, and Victor R. Basili. "Property-based software engineering measurement." Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on 22.1 (1996): 68–86.
  2. Vessey, Iris, Venkataraman Ramesh, and Robert L. Glass. "Research in information systems: An empirical study of diversity in the discipline and its journals." Journal of Management Information Systems 19.2 (2002): 129–174.
  3. Bertolino, Antonia. "Software testing research: Achievements, challenges, dreams." Future of Software Engineering, 2007. FOSE'07. IEEE, 2007.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. Robert L. Glass (2006) Software Creativity 2.0. p. v
  6. Robert L. Glass (2003) Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering. p. 190
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  8. Software, IEEE 26.6 (2009): 96–96.
  9. Joseph Feller (2005) Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software. p. 516
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  11. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. Glass, R. L. (2000). The Sociology of Open Source: Of Cults and Cultures. IEEE Software, 17(3), 104–105
  13. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links