Secondary (history-focused, based on primary sources)

Books

• The Computer Boys Take Over
• A Science of Operations
• Programmed Inequality
• Dealers of Lightning
• The Digital Hand
• Computer Systems Development
• The Leprechauns of Software Engineering

Papers

• Dijkstra’s Crisis

Other

• Why does “=” mean assignment? (light on references but an example of a great question)

Primary (and worth reading for its own sake)

Books

• The Mythical Man-Month
• Software Engineering Economics

Papers

• NATO 68 & 69 Software Engineering Conference Proceedings
• Managing the Development of Large Software Systems
• EWD Archives (Dijkstra’s blog, basically)
• Programmers Handbook for Manchester Electronic Computer Mark II (PDF transcription)
• A Plea for Lean Software - Nicklaus Wirth
• The Emperor’s Old Clothes - Charles Anthony Richard Hoare
• A theory of type polymorphism in programming
• Fundamental concepts in programming languages

Other

• A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect (Engelbart’s “Mother of All Demos”, 1968)

Meta (how to approach history)

Worksheets

• A worksheet for reading Royce’s “Managing the Development of Large Software Systems”

Papers

• Papers we scrutinize by Tomas Petricek