Larry Constantine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Larry LeRoy Constantine is a pioneer of modern software engineering practice, and is regarded as an authority on the human side of software development. He is a leading international lecturer, author, editor, and consultant. He has more than 150 published papers to his credit, as well as 17 books. These include the influential classic text, Structured Design, written with Ed Yourdon, and the award-winning Software for Use, written with Lucy Lockwood. In 2006 he was recognized as a Distinguished Engineer by the Association for Computing Machinery.
Larry is currently a professor in the Mathematics and Engineering Department at the University of Madeira Portugal, where he heads the Laboratory for Usage-centered Software Engineering (LabUSE), a research center dedicated to study the human aspects of modern software engineering.
Larry Constantine graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management in 1967 with a specialization in information systems and psychology.
Constantine's contributions to the practice of software development began in 1968 with his pioneering work in "Modular Programming" concepts, and resulted in the seminal work "Structured Design" which was put out by a number of publishers with a varying list of authors. The story in circulation at the time was that Constantine had performed the research, pulled together the material, but never edited it into a finished work. (Based on the timing, he seems to have shifted his attention to the subject of group marriage[citation needed], on which topic he co-authored two books with Joan M. Constantine (presumably, his wife)). Editing and preparation for publication apparently fell to Edward Yourdon.
Constantine's empirical work on the design principles of software module coupling and cohesion, and on the practice of functional decomposition of software processes, laid the groundwork for not only the structured software movement of the 1970's and 1980's, but for object orientation, the leading approach to software development from the 1980's until the present. Larry Constantine was also the main promoter of data flow diagrams and structured charts, two important techniques that underpin the Unified Modeling Language and are taught today in many universities worldwide.
More recently Larry's work on Human-Computer Interaction was influential for techniques like essential use-cases and usage-centered design, which are widely used for building interactive software systems.
Contents |
[edit] Education and Awards
- S.B., Management [1967] and graduate study [1967 - 1968], Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, specialization in information systems and psychology. (Sloan National Scholar; Outstanding Sloan Senior)
- Certificate in Family Therapy [1973], Boston Family Institute, two year post graduate training program.
professional
- Winner, Platinum Award of Excellence (first place), Performance-Centered Design Competition 2001: Siemens AG, STEP-7 Lite.
- Winner, Jolt Award for Product Excellence, best book of 1999: Software for Use (Addison-Wesley).
- Professional Member: Industrial Designers Society of America; Member: Usability Professionals Association, Association for Computing Machinery, IEEE Computer Society; Active Member, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
- US Patents: 7010753 Anticipating drop acceptance indication; 7055105 Drop-enabled tabbed dialog
[edit] Career
- Professor, Department of Mathematics & Engineering, University of Madeira, Funchal, Portugal [2006 --]
- Director, Laboratory for Usage-Centered Software Engineering, University of Madeira, Funchal, Portugal [2006 --]
- Chief Scientist, Principal Consultant, Constantine & Lockwood, Ltd. [1993 --]
- Professor of Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney, Australia. [1994 - 2003]
- Independent Consultant. [1987 - 1993]
- Clinical Supervisor, Adolescent and Family Intervention, LUK, Inc., Fitchburg, Mass. [1984 - 1986]
- Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies (adjunct), University of Connecticut. [1983 - 1987]
- Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University, School of Medicine. [1973 - 1980].
- Director of Research, Concord (Massachusetts) Family Service Society. [1973]
- Faculty member, I.B.M. Systems Research Institute. [1968 - 1972]
- President, Information & Systems Institute, Inc. [1966 - 1968]
- Post-graduate program instructor, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. [1967]
- Staff Consultant, Programmer/Analyst, C E I R, Inc. [1963 - 1966]
- Technical Aid/Programmer, M.I.T. Laboratory for Nuclear Science. [1963]
[edit] Partial Bibliography
- Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood, "Software for Use: A Practical Guide to the Essential Models and Methods of Usage-Centered Design", Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1999.
- Larry Constantine (ed.), "Beyond Chaos: The Expert Edge in Managing Software Development", Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2001.
- Larry Constantine, "The Peopleware Papers: Notes on the Human Side of Software", Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001.
- Larry Constantine, "Constantine on Peopleware", Yourdon Press Computing Series, 1995.
- Larry Constantine, "Children and Sex: New Findings, New Perspectives", Little Brown & Co (T), 1981.
- Larry Constantine, "Family Paradigms: The Practice of Theory in Family Therapy", Guilford Press, 1981.
- Larry Constantine and Ed Yourdon, "Structured Design", Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1979; Yourdon Press, 1975.
- Larry Constantine and Joan Constantine, "Group marriage: A study of contemporary multilateral marriage", Collier Books, 1974.
