A Prize and a Prediction

While it is difficult to identify the 1990s as an extreme decade, it was clearly one of rapid technological change. Basic technologies from the 1970s and 1980s—processor architectures, memory designs, and network systems— expanded across commercial, educational, and social markets, driven by manufacturing processes that reduced the cost and increased the capacities of computing devices. If there is a radical nature to the 1990s, it can be found in the new modes of software engineering. The proponents of these modes suggested the then-current methods of software were insufficient to create software systems that fulfilled customer requirements, were free from errors, were delivered on time, and were completed within budget. With names such as Extreme Programming (or XP),3 Scrum,9 or Agile,1 they suggested that software development needed a disciplined athleticism, more focus, more energy, and more teamwork.