Cultural Software

Cultural Software PDF Author: J. M. Balkin
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300084504
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
In this book J. M. Balkin offers a strikingly original theory of cultural evolution, a theory that explains shared understandings, disagreement, and diversity within cultures. Drawing on many fields of study--including anthropology, evolutionary theory, cognitive science, linguistics, sociology, political theory, philosophy, social psychology, and law--the author explores how cultures grow and spread, how shared understandings arise, and how people of different cultures can understand and evaluate each other's views. Cultural evolution occurs through the transmission of cultural information and know-how--cultural software--in human minds, Balkin says. Individuals embody cultural software and spread it to others through communication and social learning. Ideology, the author contends, is neither a special nor a pathological form of thought but an ordinary product of the evolution of cultural software. Because cultural understanding is a patchwork of older imperfect tools that are continually adapted to solve new problems, human understanding is partly adequate and partly inadequate to the pursuit of justice. Balkin presents numerous examples that illuminate the sources of ideological effects and their contributions to injustice. He also enters the current debate over multiculturalism, applying his theory to problems of mutual understanding between people who hold different worldviews. He argues that cultural understanding presupposes transcendent ideals and shows how both ideological analysis of others and ideological self-criticism are possible.

Cultural Software

Cultural Software PDF Author: J. M. Balkin
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300084504
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
In this book J. M. Balkin offers a strikingly original theory of cultural evolution, a theory that explains shared understandings, disagreement, and diversity within cultures. Drawing on many fields of study--including anthropology, evolutionary theory, cognitive science, linguistics, sociology, political theory, philosophy, social psychology, and law--the author explores how cultures grow and spread, how shared understandings arise, and how people of different cultures can understand and evaluate each other's views. Cultural evolution occurs through the transmission of cultural information and know-how--cultural software--in human minds, Balkin says. Individuals embody cultural software and spread it to others through communication and social learning. Ideology, the author contends, is neither a special nor a pathological form of thought but an ordinary product of the evolution of cultural software. Because cultural understanding is a patchwork of older imperfect tools that are continually adapted to solve new problems, human understanding is partly adequate and partly inadequate to the pursuit of justice. Balkin presents numerous examples that illuminate the sources of ideological effects and their contributions to injustice. He also enters the current debate over multiculturalism, applying his theory to problems of mutual understanding between people who hold different worldviews. He argues that cultural understanding presupposes transcendent ideals and shows how both ideological analysis of others and ideological self-criticism are possible.

Culture's Software

Culture's Software PDF Author: Dorota Brzozowska
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443882526
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
When Geert Hofstede famously defined culture as collective programming of the mind, the definition broadly referred to culture as such, including all the layers in his “onion” model. The title of this volume, Culture’s Software, represents a development of this original idea and was inspired by none other than Professor Hofstede himself. He used this phrase over thirty years later when lecturing to an international group of scholars gathered in Poland to debate the idea of cultural communication styles, which has, in recent years, been fruitfully discussed from a fresh perspective by scholars working within cognitive and cultural linguistics. The debate has given rise to this book, which will inspire further research into this fascinating subject.

Two Bits

Two Bits PDF Author: Christopher M. Kelty
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822342649
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
In Two Bits, Christopher M. Kelty investigates the history and cultural significance of Free Software, revealing the people and practices that have transformed not only software but also music, film, science, and education. Free Software is a set of practices devoted to the collaborative creation of software source code that is made openly and freely available through an unconventional use of copyright law. Kelty explains how these specific practices have reoriented the relations of power around the creation, dissemination, and authorization of all kinds of knowledge. He also makes an important contribution to discussions of public spheres and social imaginaries by demonstrating how Free Software is a “recursive public”—a public organized around the ability to build, modify, and maintain the very infrastructure that gives it life in the first place. Drawing on ethnographic research that took him from an Internet healthcare start-up company in Boston to media labs in Berlin to young entrepreneurs in Bangalore, Kelty describes the technologies and the moral vision that bind together hackers, geeks, lawyers, and other Free Software advocates. In each case, he shows how their practices and way of life include not only the sharing of software source code but also ways of conceptualizing openness, writing copyright licenses, coordinating collaboration, and proselytizing. By exploring in detail how these practices came together as the Free Software movement from the 1970s to the 1990s, Kelty also considers how it is possible to understand the new movements emerging from Free Software: projects such as Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that creates copyright licenses, and Connexions, a project to create an online scholarly textbook commons.

Creating a Software Engineering Culture

Creating a Software Engineering Culture PDF Author: Karl E. Wiegers
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 0133489299
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
This is the digital version of the printed book (Copyright © 1996). Written in a remarkably clear style, Creating a Software Engineering Culture presents a comprehensive approach to improving the quality and effectiveness of the software development process. In twenty chapters spread over six parts, Wiegers promotes the tactical changes required to support process improvement and high-quality software development. Throughout the text, Wiegers identifies scores of culture builders and culture killers, and he offers a wealth of references to resources for the software engineer, including seminars, conferences, publications, videos, and on-line information. With case studies on process improvement and software metrics programs and an entire part on action planning (called “What to Do on Monday”), this practical book guides the reader in applying the concepts to real life. Topics include software culture concepts, team behaviors, the five dimensions of a software project, recognizing achievements, optimizing customer involvement, the project champion model, tools for sharing the vision, requirements traceability matrices, the capability maturity model, action planning, testing, inspections, metrics-based project estimation, the cost of quality, and much more! Principles from Part 1 Never let your boss or your customer talk you into doing a bad job. People need to feel the work they do is appreciated. Ongoing education is every team member’s responsibility. Customer involvement is the most critical factor in software quality. Your greatest challenge is sharing the vision of the final product with the customer. Continual improvement of your software development process is both possible and essential. Written software development procedures can help build a shared culture of best practices. Quality is the top priority; long-term productivity is a natural consequence of high quality. Strive to have a peer, rather than a customer, find a defect. A key to software quality is to iterate many times on all development steps except coding: Do this once. Managing bug reports and change requests is essential to controlling quality and maintenance. If you measure what you do, you can learn to do it better. You can’t change everything at once. Identify those changes that will yield the greatest benefits, and begin to implement them next Monday. Do what makes sense; don’t resort to dogma.

Software Studies

Software Studies PDF Author: Matthew Fuller
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262062747
Category : Computer programs
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
This collection of short expository, critical and speculative texts offers a field guide to the cultural, political, social and aesthetic impact of software. Experts from a range of disciplines each take a key topic in software and the understanding of software, such as algorithms and logical structures.

Developing Safety-Critical Software

Developing Safety-Critical Software PDF Author: Leanna Rierson
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351834053
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
The amount of software used in safety-critical systems is increasing at a rapid rate. At the same time, software technology is changing, projects are pressed to develop software faster and more cheaply, and the software is being used in more critical ways. Developing Safety-Critical Software: A Practical Guide for Aviation Software and DO-178C Compliance equips you with the information you need to effectively and efficiently develop safety-critical, life-critical, and mission-critical software for aviation. The principles also apply to software for automotive, medical, nuclear, and other safety-critical domains. An international authority on safety-critical software, the author helped write DO-178C and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s policy and guidance on safety-critical software. In this book, she draws on more than 20 years of experience as a certification authority, an avionics manufacturer, an aircraft integrator, and a software developer to present best practices, real-world examples, and concrete recommendations. The book includes: An overview of how software fits into the systems and safety processes Detailed examination of DO-178C and how to effectively apply the guidance Insight into the DO-178C-related documents on tool qualification (DO-330), model-based development (DO-331), object-oriented technology (DO-332), and formal methods (DO-333) Practical tips for the successful development of safety-critical software and certification Insightful coverage of some of the more challenging topics in safety-critical software development and verification, including real-time operating systems, partitioning, configuration data, software reuse, previously developed software, reverse engineering, and outsourcing and offshoring An invaluable reference for systems and software managers, developers, and quality assurance personnel, this book provides a wealth of information to help you develop, manage, and approve safety-critical software more confidently.

Knowledge-Based Processes in Software Development

Knowledge-Based Processes in Software Development PDF Author: Saeed, Saqib
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1466642300
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Recent growth in knowledge management concepts has played a vital role in the improvement of organizational performance. These knowledge management approaches have been influential in achieving the goal of efficient production of software development processes. Knowledge-Based Processes in Software Development focuses on the inherent issues to help practitioners in gaining understanding of software development processes. The best practices highlighted in this publication will be essential to software professionals working in the industry as well as students and researchers in the domain of software engineering in order to successfully employ knowledge management procedures.

Information Technology Ethics: Cultural Perspectives

Information Technology Ethics: Cultural Perspectives PDF Author: Hongladarom, Soraj
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1599043122
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
"This book is the first publication that takes a genuinely global approach to the diverse ethical issues evoked by Information and Communication Technologies and their possible resolutions. Readers will gain a greater appreciation for the problems and possibilities of genuinely global information ethics, which are urgently needed as information and communication technologies continue their exponential growth"--Provided by publisher.

Software Project Management

Software Project Management PDF Author: Lawrence J. Peters
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 104003523X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
The management of a software project has been shown to be the number one factor in determining a software development project’s success. It has been found that most software projects fail because of poor management. Not surprisingly, most software development managers have not been trained in project management. Software Project Management: Methods and Techniques aims to remedy this situation in two ways: familiarizing software developers with the elements of the project management discipline and providing fact-based resources on practicing software project management. Much like the checklist pilots go through prior to a flight, this book provides a pre-project checklist which enables the software engineering team to review and evaluate an extensive set of technical and sociopolitical risks which will help the software project manager and the team determine the project team’s chances of success. This same list and the individual question responses can be used later as part of the project’s closeout process helping team members to improve their individual and collective abilities to assess risk. Intended for both students and software project managers, the book is organized along the lines of the five major functions of a software project manager: planning; scheduling and costing; controlling; staffing; and motivating. The basics of each of these functions are presented in a single chapter. These are followed by a series of narrow topic presentations in the form of appendices that are intended to help solve specific problems that may occur during the conduct of a software project. As in the main portion of the text, the appendices include references that provide an avenue into further detail on the topic. Designed to promote project success, this approach has been taken because software projects are each unique undertakings such that providing a "one size fits all" approach will fail most of the time.

Software Applications: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications

Software Applications: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications PDF Author: Tiako, Pierre F.
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1605660612
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 3618

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Book Description
Includes articles in topic areas such as autonomic computing, operating system architectures, and open source software technologies and applications.