A software technology evaluation program

A wealth of potentially beneficial software engineering tools, practices, and techniques has emerged in the past few years. However, many of these innovations have never been empirically validated. The Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL), a cooperative project of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Computer Sciences Corporation, and the University of Maryland, conducts an extensive technology evaluation program. The SEL studies the production of FORTRAN software for spacecraft navigation systems. This paper summarizes the results of SEL investigations in the areas of design practices, coding techniques, test/verification methods, and computer utilization. An earlier version of this paper appears in The Annals of XVIII Brazilian National Informatics Congress, September 1985.