Software Requirements and Specifications. A Lexicon of Practice, Principles and Prejudices

Software Reqiuirements Specifications and is the latest book from Michael Jackson, one of the foremost contributors to software development method and practice. The book brings together some 75 short pieces about principles and techniques requirements for analysis, specification and design.

The ideas are discussed deep, but at the same time lightly and wittily expressed. The book is fun to read, rewarding the reader with many valuble and novel insights. Some sacred cows, including top-down development, dataflow diagrams and the distinction between What and How, are led to the slaughter. Readers will be provoked--perhaps to fury, perhaps to enthusiasm, but surely to think more deeply about topics and issues of central importance in the field of software development.

There are new ideas about problem structuring, based on the concept of a problem frame, leading to a clearer notion of complexity and how to deal with it.