Software Design for Engineers and Scientists

may amount only to HTML tweaking, the upshot is they are able to

launch into learning a ‘difficult’ programming language like C++

without a prior, gentle, introduction to programming and computers

in general. Consequently any science or engineering student ought to

be able to use this book, even if they have not had a first programming

course. To ensure this is possible, the tutorial introduction to C++ in

Chapters 4 and 5 is selective, but at first gentle.

Important thing number 3:The programming language landscape has

changed. Java emerged in the mid-1990s and is dominant in many fields.

C# could be the language of the future, at least for Windows-based

applications. The language used for this book, C++, has been standard-

ized. This environmental change has affected both the text and the pro-

gram examples, and it has meant that I will be providing code in other

languages on the companion website. Chapter 4 includes some com-

ments about the trade-offs between languages and idioms (page 51).

The testimonials I’ve had from Waterloo students who still use their

course notes suggest that the original idea of software design for engi-

neers (and scientists) was a good one – perhaps even good enough to

compensate for the NeXT machine debacle. I think it still is.

Software Design for Engineers and Scientists explains how many dif-

ferent perspectives there are on what software is, and how we can learn

from them all. But there’s no doubt that the greatest benefit to a designer

comes from working with people who are better designers. I’ve been

lucky to work alongside some great programmers and learn from them.

Chronologically, rather than in order of importance (which I couldn’t

even estimate), these are the people who have left a permanent stamp on

my thinking and ability as a software designer: Jürgen Foldenauer, Tim

Dennis, Chris Toulson, Guy Vonderweidt, Charles Nahas, Lawrence Croft,

Michael Chambers, Jason Fischl, Steffen Lindner, Mehran Farimani,

Li-Te Cheng. Thank you all – wherever you are.

My Waterloo students had to provide feedback on the notes that

became this book. Among those writing helpful critiques, the most

important was Todd Veldhuizen, and I also learned a lot from Don

Bowman. Many graduate students read later drafts and provided their

corrections and comments. Thanks to my colleagues at Waterloo for

approving the software design course, particularly Ed Jernigan,

Shekar, and the TAs who were so encouraging about the course when

the project was driving the students (and us) mad.

Thanks to my colleagues in the Electrical and Computer Engineering

discipline at Memorial for providing the most supportive working

environment I’ve experienced: particularly (in the context of this

book) to Theo Norvell for letting me pontificate on software design

during his courses, and to John Quaicoe for wise management and

inspiring teaching quality.

Thanks to the staff and students of the Department of Electronics

at York, especially Stuart Porter and the students in Data Structures

and Algorithms who have experienced some of this book as it went

through yet more iterations.

Finally, my thanks to Gill, Luke and Stephen for everything else.

Preface xiii

Acknowledgements