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are the opportunities that it offers and the dangers that it poses. The context in which software has been developed is closely coupled to almost five decades of puter system evolution. Better hardware performance,smaller size and lower cost have precipitated more sophisticated puterbased systems. We’ve moved form vacuum tube processors to microelectronic deviced that are capable of processing 200 million 包含 uctions per second .In popular books on “the puter revolution,”O(jiān)sborne characterized a “new industrial revolution,” Toffer called the advent of microelectronics part of “the third wave of change” in human history , and Naisbitt predicted that the transformation from an industrial society to an “information society” will have a profound impact on our lives. Feigenbaum and McCorduck suggested that information and knowledge will be the focal point for power in the twentyfirst century, and Stoll argued that the “ electronic munity” created by works and software is the key to knowledge interchange throughout the world . As the 1990s began , Toffler described a “power shift” in which old power structures( governmental, educational,industrial,economic,and military) will disintegrate as puters and software lead to a “democratization of knowledge.” 20th century 60’s—70 age Traditional software engineering 1980s intermediate stages Objct project At the end of 1980s Software process project 1990s Component project FIGURE Evolution of software. Figure depicts the evolution of software within the context system application areas. During the early years of puter system development, hardware underwent continual change while software was viewed by many as an afterthought. Computer programming was a seatofthepants art for which few systematic methods existed. Software development was virtually unmanageduntil schedules slipped or costs began to escalate. During this period, a batch orientation was used for most systems. Notable exceptions were interactive systems such as the early American Airlines reservation system and realtime defenseoriented systems such as SAGE. For the most part, however, hardware was dedicated to the ution of,a single program that in turn was dedicated to a specific application. During the early years, generalpurpose hardware became monplace. Software,on the other hand,was customdes