This volume of Advances in Computers is number 66 in the series that began back in 1960. This series presents the ever changing landscape in the continuing evolution of the development of the computer and the field of information processing. Each year three volumes are produced presenting approximately 20 chapters that describe the latest technology in the use of computers today. Volume 66, subtitled "Quality software development," is concerned about the current need to create quality software. It describes the current emphasis in techniques for creating such software and in methods to...

Although software engineering can trace its beginnings to a NATO conf- ence in 1968, it cannot be said to have become an empirical science until the 1970s with the advent of the work of Prof. Victor Robert Basili of the University of Maryland. In addition to the need to engineer software was the need to understand software. Much like other sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and biology, software engineering needed a discipline of obs- vation, theory formation, experimentation, and feedback. By applying the scientific method to the software engineering domain, Basili developed concepts like...