Barry Boehm

Barry W. Boehm is known for many contributions to software engineering. He was the first to identify software as the primary expense of future computer systems, he developed COCOMO, the spiral model, wideband delphi, and many more contributions through his involvement in industry and academia.

In an important report to DARPA (year?), Boehm predicted that software costs would overwhelm hardware costs. DARPA had expected him to predict that hardware would remain the biggest problem, encouraging them to invest in even larger computers. The report inspired a change of direction in computing.

Software economics

Barry Boehm's book Software Engineering Economics (Englewood Cliffs, NJ : Prentice-Hall, 1981 ISBN 0-13-822122-7) documents his Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO). It relates software development effort for a program, in man-years T, to source lines of code (SLOC).

$T = k * (SLOC)^{(1+x)}$

For a single software developer, k can be factored out by using more than 1 SLOC data point. In this case, x can be a fraction like 0.1 or 0.25.

Note: since man are not interchangeable with years, Brooks' Law applies:
- Adding programmers to a late project makes it later.
- Thus this formula is best applied to stable software development teams which have completed multiple projects.

Spiral model

Boehm also created the spiral model of software development, in which the phases of development are repeatedly revisited. This iterative software development process influenced extreme programming.

Wideband Delphi

Boehm refined the Delphi method of estimation to include more group iteration, making it more suitable for certain classes of problems, such as software development. This variant is called the Wideband Delphi method.

Education

Dr. Boehm received his B.A. degree from Harvard University in 1957, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from UCLA in 1961 and 1964, all in Mathematics.

Career

Boehm has worked as educator and researcher for many years. Boehm worked at RAND, TRW Inc., DARPA, and is currently TRW Professor of Software Engineering, Computer Science Department, and Director, USC Center for Software Engineering.

Awards

Recent awards include the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence (1992), the ASQC Lifetime Achievement Award (1994), and the ACM Distinguished Research Award in Software Engineering (1997). He is an AIAA Fellow, an ACM Fellow, an IEEE Fellow, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He received the Mellon Award for Excellence in Mentoring ^* on Tuesday, April 19, 2005.

American computer scientists | Fellows of the ACM | Fellows of the IEEE