Pietrasanta served as director of the IBM Software Engineering Institute from 1982 to 1985; this article is an edited version of a conference keynote address he gave. Beginning with the introduction of software engineering into the IBM Federal Systems Division (FSD) by Harland Mills and others, it addresses the effort required to train virtually all of the FSD’s 2400 programmers. A discussion of the modifications that were needed to bring the FSD experience to the 10,000 commercial systems programmers within IBM and how software engineering was used to move programmers from a defect detection focus to a focus on defect prevention follows.

The heart of the paper deals with difficulties associated with introducing software engineering, which is a difficult subject to teach. IBM found that an extensive one-year course was needed to properly prepare an experienced programmer to present a two-week course. Student resistance to using a formal, rigorous, mathematically-based design language caused additional difficulties. The article also addresses the difficulties in both learning and applying software engineering. A section on the difficulties of getting management to change is particularly interesting. As one might anticipate, Pietrasanta also discusses the rewards of using software engineering, leading to the conclusion that while it is not an easy topic to learn and apply, the rewards justify the effort.

Also included is the transcript of a question-and-answer session that followed the presentation. Specifics on a number of the topics addressed in the talk may be found in the 1985 IBM Systems Journal, volume 24, number 4, and in an article by Hoffnagle and Beregy [1]. This is a well-written article from someone who has been there.