Table of Contents

Preface. Acknowledgements. CHAPTER 1: Knowledge Capital and Economic Growth. BETTER TOOLS INCREASE THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. CORE CONCEPT: THE EVOLVING CAPITAL STRUCTURE. CAPITAL GOODS AS KNOWLEDGE. CAPITAL GOODS AND DIVISION OF KNOWLEDGE ACROSS TIME AND SPACE. CAPITAL STRUCTURE. DESIGNING CAPITAL GOODS AS A SOCIAL LEARNING PROCESS. CHAPTER 2: A Short History of Software Development. INTRODUCTION. OVERVIEW: FROM RESOURCE CONSTRAINT TO COMPLEXITY CONSTRAINT. THE KEY CHALLENGE: COORDINATING DISTRIBUTED LEARNING. THE EVOLUTION OF PROGRAMMERS CAPITAL GOODS. OBJECT-ORIENTATION AND SOCIAL LEARNING. SUMMARY. CHAPTER 3: Designing New Software Capital. INTRODUCTION. DISCOVERING WHAT THE SOFTWARE MUST "KNOW": WHY PROTOTYPING. DESIGNING AS UNDERSTANDING: THE ROLE OF TOOLS FOR THOUGHT. INTERMEDIATE GOODS FOR DESIGNERS: REUSABLE COMPONENTS AND PATTERNS. SUMMARY. CHAPTER 4: Designing Evolvable Software. INTRODUCTION. EVOLVABILITY AS A DESIGN GOAL. EVOLVABILITY THROUGH MODULARITY. DESIGN PRINCIPLES THAT YIELD MODULARITY. GENERAL COMMENT ON MODULARITY AND SOCIAL LEARNING. ACCELERATING EVOLUTION THROUGH SOFTWARE REUSE. SUMMARY. CHAPTER 5: Extending the Software Capital Structure: The Promise of Component Markets. INTRODUCTION. THE ECONOMIC PARADOX OF SOFTWARE CAPITAL. NEEDED: MARKETS FOR INSTANCES RATHER THAN FOR CODE. ASPECTS OF COMPONENT MARKET EVOLUTION. LEARNING THROUGH MARKETS. SUMMARY. CHAPTER 6: Summary: Foundations and Implications for the Software Development Industry. FOUNDATIONS. A HISTORY OF COPING WITH INCREASING COMPLEXITY. IMPLICATIONS FOR THE DESIGN PROCESS. IMPLICATIONS FOR DESIGN CHARACTERISTICS. IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF THE INDUSTRY. APPENDIX A: Irrelevance of the Mainstream Theory of Economic Growth. PROBLEMATIC ASPECTS OF TRADITIONAL GROWTH THEORY. MISSING STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS: COMPLEMENTARITY AND INDIVISIBILITY. SHORTFALLS IN THE "NEW GROWTH THEORY" OF PAUL M. ROMER. APPENDIX B: Applicability to Hard Tools. PROTOTYPING AND SOCIAL LEARNING. MODULARITY AND EVOLVABILITY. References. Index.

About the Author

Howard Baetjer Jr. is the author of Software as Capital: An Economic Perspective on Software Engineering, published by Wiley.