ABSTRACT
In 1967, a NATO study group was formed to discuss the 'software crises.— At the end of 1 year, the group concluded that building software is similar to other engineering tasks and software development should be viewed as an engineeringlike activity. Thus, the phrase 'software engineering— was born, along with the belief that programing was simply the application of certain scientific and engineering principles. As a result, texts were written and metrics established for the purpose of identifying the scientific principles of software engineering (Gelperin & Hetzel, 1988). The fact that programs still contain bugs, are delivered late, and are overbudget should tell us that many of the basic scientific principles of programing remain undiscovered. Yet the goal remains that software engineering is a discipline whose aim is the production of quality software, software that is delivered on time, within budget, and that satisfies its requirements. As a result, most software engineers interpret technology assessment as the set of procedures that are used to determine ’how well— the software meets itsinitial specifications. On the other hand, most software users maintain that technology assessment (i.e., software assessment) should be a measure of how well the software meets theuser's needs.
