Decline and Fall of the American Programmer

Decline and Fall of the American Programmer is a book written by Edward Yourdon in 1992. It was addressed to American programmers and software organizations of the 1990s, warning that they were about to be driven out of business by programmers in other countries who could produce software more cheaply and with higher quality. Yourdon claimed that American software organizations could only retain their edge by using technologies such as ones he described in the book.

An overview of software engineering principles, techniques, and tools that draws some controversial conclusions as to the direction of software engineering and the career prospects of today's programmers.