Sommerville was my graduate software engineering textbook in the late 1980s. Along with Jackson, Yourdon and a few others it was the bedrock of my thinking abou

Sommerville was my graduate software engineering textbook in the late 1980s. Along with Jackson, Yourdon and a few others it was the bedrock of my thinking about how to manage software projects over the past 30 years. It's not as if I got stuck in that mind-set, having been a keen, early adopter (and early critic) of many faddish methodologies over the years - but I've been astounded by the almost total lack of deep traction these philosophies have had in cultivating a mature, long term, responsible engineering attitude in our business. I am really pleased to hear a heavyweight like Ian Sommerville pitching in on what I've been seeing as a cultural crisis in software spanning almost a couple of decades now. It's disappointing to hear the usual dismissal of research and lionising of "industry" as if a cowboy "move fast and break things" mind-set constituted a single coherent commercial ideology. Can you imagine if the pharmaceutical or aviation industry took a cavalier attitude towards "eggheads with their cell biology theories" or "crazy academics with their fancy aerodynamic equations". Is software the only engineering discipline where the product gets less efficient each year? Partly I think it's also the public's fault for accepting such shoddy produce, and of governments for not being stricter because of a Faustian bargain to enjoy mass surveillance and cybernetic social control as vicarious side effects of a hands-off approach. It must be frustrating to have put a lifetime into carefully considered formalisms and see so little uptake. Anyway, what we've ended up with a bunch of non-interoperable, insecure devices and services built by well paid but mostly unhappy workers who have almost no grasp of the complexity, history or societal import of what they create. Sooner or later the chickens are coming home to roost, as cybersecurity, resilience or interoperability issues. Says Sommerville: "As a community, senior members (and in this I include myself) have failed to create an inclusive environment where new ideas from outside of the traditional elite are supported. We do not act together when dealing with policy makers and funding agencies and, with rare exceptions, have not spoken out against the futile short-termism that has hampered the development of our field." I absolutely salute you Ian. I wrote similarly a year ago in my last book that I feel a great sense of regret as a computer scientist who did not speak out sooner and louder. Perhaps it's grandiose/omnipotent to think we ever could have made a difference, but if not our generation then I really hope a new, radical generation will emerge who have the courage to "take back tech".