I’d like to go back to the SEMAT discussion. As I mentioned in my previous post, I believe that a widely accepted and sound theoretical basis is the key to moving from commercial practice to an engineering discipline. SEMAT looks to agree on the theories underlying software development, so in this sense it’s heading in the right direction. I also like that the list of signatories includes some of the key persons in our discipline such as Barry Boehm, Victor Basili, Watts Humphrey and David Harel. SEMAT wants to achieve its goals by building a “kernel” of widely agreed elements, extensible for specific uses.