Highlights of the 1974 Lake Arrowhead Workshop

The dramatic decline in computer hardware costs in recent years has brought the costs of software development into sharp focus. But important efforts to address software technology have been underway during the same period–notably in the 60´s by Böhm, Jacopini, Dijkstra, Parnas, and others in the university environment, and in the 70´s by such people as Mills and Baker, who defined specific elements of a methodology directed toward reducing software costs and improving software quality. This methodology, which according to Mills and Baker was successfully applied to the New York Times information bank project, is generally referred to as structured programming (SP)–but includes such methods as top down design and chief programmer teams.