About my book

About the book

Ed Yourdon's Comments

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Back cover copy

A breakthrough model for understanding software development -- and breakthrough techniques for improving it!

You can't improve the way you develop software if you don't understand it. Journey of the Software Professional offers the first complete model of software development -- based on the newest research in cognitive psychology and organizational behavior. But that's just the beginning. At its heart, this is a book of practical advice for developers and managers who are serious about enhancing their own effectiveness, and the effectiveness of their teams.

This book transcends the boring, self-evident advice you've heard a thousand times before, with fresh insights into:

Choosing the best work environment for your personality and workstyle

Building on your personal and management strengths, and avoiding common errors

Finding better ways to approach individual and team problem-solving

Creating a better team culture

Improving communication effectiveness

Managing both technological and organizational change

Crammed with advice for both developers and managers, Journey of the Software Professional covers an extraordinary range of topics -- and presents them through a coherent Structure-Process-Outcome framework that helps you make sense of your own experience.

You'll discover tools and techniques for building and implementing your own career development plan. You'll learn the concepts underlying well-designed system architectures and how to apply these concepts to create an architecture appropriate for your project. At the same time you'll learn how to create organizational structures that support this architecture and manage the growth of the team over the life of the project. You'll learn how to develop long-term strategies for improving your organization's software development. And a whole lot more.

No matter what role you play in software development, or where you are in your career, this book represents a breakthrough in understanding what you're doing -- and how to do it better!

"In many ways, it opened my eyes. If you are a software professional, I think it will open yours as well."

-- Gerald M. Weinberg

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About the author

There are two versions of the "about the author." The first appears on the back cover. The second appears on the inside of the book after the index. Together, they provide an overview of my career, both in computers and in other activities.

LUKE HOHMANN, Education Technical Director at ObjectSpace, Inc., has taught object-oriented technology and software engineering management for companies such as Sprint, Kodak, E-Systems, Ernst & Young, and Bell-Atlantic. From 1985 to 1993, he worked at several positions for Electronic Data Systems, including Vice President of Systems Engineering at EDS Fleet Services. From 1988 to 1992, he was also a member of the Highly Interactive Computing Environments (Hi-CE) research group led by Elliot Soloway, Ph.D., at the University of Michigan, where among other projects, he designed programming environments to help novice developers learn design skills.

LUKE HOHMANN graduated from the University of Michigan in 1992 with an M.S.E. in computer science and engineering. He is a member of the IEEE and ACM. A former competitive figure skater, Luke garnered numerous honors and awards in his fourteen-year career. In 1985, he and his partner won the United States National Junior Pairs Championship and represented the United States in international competition. Luke was also a two-time competitor at the United States Olympic Festival. At present, Luke maintains an active lifestyle as an American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM-HFI) certified aerobics instructor, teaching between three and five aerobics classes per week. His experiences as an athlete have provided valuable inspiration for improving his abilities as a software professional and have served to illustrate several key concepts in this book.

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Notes on writing

I knew that writing this book would be hard, because other authors had told me it would be hard. It was, but the end result was very worthwhile. I think what surprised me the most was the sheer number of people who were involved in taking a rough manuscript and transforming it into a finished product. Without any of them, and certainly without the help and encouragement of my closest friends, I don't think I could have written the book.

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