Software Engineering as a Human Activity

Catalog description

This course addresses the human aspect of software engineering, by studying the people who practice it. Students will explore software engineering as traditionally defined, and also consider techniques that transform how we understand software engineering, such as methods from psychology and sociology. Students will study the usability of software engineering tools, the psychology of programming, performance of software developers, experimental methods in observing software engineers, distributed development and coordination, and cultural differences between software developers.