Ed Yourdon

Inducted in the Inaugural Class (1990)

Notable accomplishments:

• Co-developer of structured analysis/design methods that influenced software development for most of the 1970s and ’80s
• Co-developer of object-oriented analysis/design, which further influenced software design
• Authored more than 200 technical articles and 24 books

Quotes:
“There is nothing in the programming field more despicable than an undocumented program.” (“Techniques of Program Structure and Design,” 1975)

“A system composed of 100,000 lines of C++ is not be sneezed at, but we don’t have that much trouble developing 100,000 lines of COBOL today. The real test of OOP will come when systems of 1 to 10 million lines of code are developed.” (“Object-oriented Programming Systems, Languages and Applications,” Andreas Paepcke , 1991)

“If you haven’t spent at least a month working on the same program — working 16 hours a day, dreaming about it during the remaining 8 hours of restless sleep, working several nights straight through trying to eliminate that ‘one last bug’ from the program — then you haven’t really written a complicated computer program.” (“Just Enough Structured Analysis,” 2006)

Suggested reading:

“Techniques of Program Structure and Design,” by Ed Yourdon (1975)

“Writings of the Revolution: Selected Readings on Software Engineering,” edited by Ed Yourdon (1982)

“Decline and Fall of the American Programmer,” by Ed Yourdon (1992)

Learn more:

Ed Yourdon’s tribute page from his family

Obituary on I Programmer website