Question

Software Quality Assurance Exam Question:

Outline the history of software engineering from the 1960s to today. Include any significant events and paradigms that have shaped the discipline. Must include at least 5 points.

Answer 1

i)1960 is called the Pioneering Era where new computers were coming out almost every year or two,software people had to rewrite all their programs to run on these new machines and programmers did not have computers on their desks and had to go to the "machine room".
ii) In the pioneering Era ,computer hardware was application-specific. Scientific and business tasks needed different machines.
   high-order languages like FORTRAN, COBOL, and ALGOL were developed for this machines.

iii) The Stabilizing Era(1965-1980),the whole job-queue system had been institutionalized and so programmers no longer ran their jobs except for peculiar applications like on-board computers.

iv) in the stabilizing era,the massive O/S, still coming largely free with the computer, controlled most of the services that a running program needed. "Structured Programming" burst on the scene in the middle of this era.Programmers still had to go to the "machine room" and did not have computers on their desks.
v)The Micro Era (1980-Present),where gui is introduced and instruction set has not chnged.