Fundamentals of Software Engineering Engineering Handbook 1st Edition Rajat Gupta
Fundamentals of Software Engineering Engineering Handbook 1st Edition Rajat Gupta
Fundamentals of Software Engineering Engineering Handbook 1st Edition Rajat Gupta
Fundamentals of Software Engineering Engineering Handbook 1st Edition Rajat Gupta
1. Fundamentals of Software Engineering Engineering
Handbook 1st Edition Rajat Gupta download
https://ebookmeta.com/product/fundamentals-of-software-
engineering-engineering-handbook-1st-edition-rajat-gupta/
Download more ebook from https://ebookmeta.com
2. We believe these products will be a great fit for you. Click
the link to download now, or visit ebookmeta.com
to discover even more!
Fundamentals of Software Engineering 5th Edition Rajib
Mall
https://ebookmeta.com/product/fundamentals-of-software-
engineering-5th-edition-rajib-mall/
Think Like a Software Engineering Manager MEAP V05
Akanksha Gupta
https://ebookmeta.com/product/think-like-a-software-engineering-
manager-meap-v05-akanksha-gupta-2/
Think Like a Software Engineering Manager MEAP V05
Akanksha Gupta
https://ebookmeta.com/product/think-like-a-software-engineering-
manager-meap-v05-akanksha-gupta/
The Ideal Woman Sudha Emani Swami Vivekananda Swami
Ranganathananda
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-ideal-woman-sudha-emani-swami-
vivekananda-swami-ranganathananda/
3. Firewalls Don t Stop Dragons 5th Edition Carey Parker
https://ebookmeta.com/product/firewalls-don-t-stop-dragons-5th-
edition-carey-parker/
ARGE construction partnership in Germany legal issues
in cooperation of different engineering firms legal
issues in cooperation of different engineering firms
1st Edition Kenan Kaya
https://ebookmeta.com/product/arge-construction-partnership-in-
germany-legal-issues-in-cooperation-of-different-engineering-
firms-legal-issues-in-cooperation-of-different-engineering-
firms-1st-edition-kenan-kaya/
Java Platform Standard Edition Security Developer s
Guide Oracle
https://ebookmeta.com/product/java-platform-standard-edition-
security-developer-s-guide-oracle/
Werner Herzog Filmmaker and Philosopher 1st Edition
Richard Eldridge
https://ebookmeta.com/product/werner-herzog-filmmaker-and-
philosopher-1st-edition-richard-eldridge/
Theory and Practice in Second Language Teacher Identity
Researching Theorising and Enacting 1st Edition Karim
Sadeghi
https://ebookmeta.com/product/theory-and-practice-in-second-
language-teacher-identity-researching-theorising-and-
enacting-1st-edition-karim-sadeghi/
4. Pintupi Country Pintupi Self Sentiment Place and
Politics among Western Desert Aborigines
https://ebookmeta.com/product/pintupi-country-pintupi-self-
sentiment-place-and-politics-among-western-desert-aborigines/
5. engineering handbook Rajat Gupta
First Edition
2019
SOFTWARE
SOFTWARE
SOFTWARE
Engineering
Engineering
Engineering
FUNDAMENTALS OF
FUNDAMENTALS OF
FUNDAMENTALS OF
6. Contents
C H A P T E R . 1 . INTRODUCTION TO SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
1.1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.2 SOFTWARE CLASSES 2
1.3 TYPES OF SOFTWARE 2
1.3.1 System Software 2
1.3.2 Application Software 2
1.3.3 Utility Software 2
1.4 ROLE OF SOFTWARE 3
1.5 WHAT IS A GOOD SOFTWARE ? 4
1.6 PROGRAM VS. SOFTWARE 4
1.7 SOFTWARE CAN BE VIEWED AS A PRODUCT. HOW ? 5
1.8 LIMITATIONS OF SOFTWARE 6
1.9 SOFTWARE CRISIS 6
1.10 SOFTWARE MYTHS 7
1.10.1 Management myths 7
1.10.2 Customer myths 7
1.10.3 Practitioner’s myths 7
1.11 WHY SOFTWARE NEEDS TO BE TREATED IN
AN ENGINEERED WAY ? 8
1.12 WHAT IS SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ? 8
1.13 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES, SKILLS
AND CHALLENGES 9
1.14 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING COMPONENTS 10
1.14.1 Systems Engineering Approach 10
1.14.2 Development Engineering Approach / Methodology 10
1.14.2.1 SSAD and OOSAD 11
1.15 WHAT IS A SOFTWARE PROCESS ? 13
1.16 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS MODELS 13
1.17 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE : (SDLC) 14
1.18 MODERN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT 14
SUMMARY 15
EXERCISES 16
C H A P T E R . 2 . SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE (SDLC)
2.1 DEFINITION 17
2.2 OBJECTIVES OF SDLC : SDLC 17
2.3 PHASES OF SDLC 17
2.4 DIAGRAMMATIC REPRESENTATION OF SOFTWARE LIFE CYCLE 18
2.4.1 User / Stakeholder’s requirements 18
2.4.2 Feasibility study 19
2.4.3 Requirement analysis and specification 19
2.4.4 Design 19
2.4.5 Coding 20
2.4.6 Testing 20
2.4.7 Certification 20
7. 2.4.8 Implementation 20
2.4.9 Maintenance and review 20
2.4.10 Special phases 20
SUMMARY 22
EXERCISE 22
C H A P T E R . 3 . SOFTWARE PROCESS MODEL
3.1 INTRODUCTION 23
3.2 CATEGORIES OF SOFTWARE PROCESS MODELS 24
3.3 THE WATERFALL MODEL 24
3.3.1 Systemengineering 25
3.3.2 Requirement analysis 25
3.3.3 Design phase26
3.3.4 Coding 27
3.3.5 Testing 27
3.3.6 Maintenance 27
3.3.6 Advantages 28
3.3.7 Disadvantages 28
3.4 PROTOTYPING MODEL 28
3.4.1 Reasons for using prototyping model 29
3.4.2 Type of prototyping 29
3.4.3 Evolutionary prototyping 29
3.4.4 Throwaway prototyping 30
3.4.5 Rapid prototyping techniques 31
3.5 THE RAPID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT (RAD) MODEL 32
3.5.1 Process of the RAD 33
3.5.2 Advantages of RAD model 34
3.6 THE NEED FOR EVOLUTIONARY MODELS 34
3.7 THE INCREMENTAL MODEL 35
3.7.1 Advantages 35
3.7.2 Disadvantages 36
3.8 SPIRAL MODEL 36
3.9 COMPONENT ASSEMBLY MODEL 37
3.9.1 Advantages 38
3.9.2 Disadvantages 38
3.10 THE CONCURRENT DEVELOPMENT MODEL 39
3.10.1 Advantages 39
3.11 THE FORMAL METHODS MODEL 40
3.11.1 The merits of this model are given below 40
3.11.2 The demerits of this model are listed below 40
3.12 FORTH GENERATION TECHNIQUES (4GT) 40
3.13 COMPARISON AND SUITABILITY OF SOFTWARE
LIFECYCLE MODELS 41
3.14 SELECTION OF A LIFECYCLE MODEL 43
3.14.1 Characteristics of requirements 43
3.14.2 Status of development team 44
3.14.3 Involvement of users 44
3.14.4 Type of project and associated risk 45
SUMMARY 45
EXERCISE 46
8. C H A P T E R . 4 . FEASIBILITY STUDY
4.1 INTRODUCTION 48
4.2 SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT 48
4.3 ROLE OF PROJECT MANAGER 48
4.4 ROLE OF SYSTEM ANALYST 49
4.5 PROJECT MANAGEMENT DIFFICULTIES 49
4.6 SOFTWARE PROEJCT PLANNING 50
4.7 SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN (SPMP) 50
4.8 SOFTWARE PROJECT SCHEDULING 53
4.8.1 Project scheduling activities 53
4.8.2 Software project scheduling techniques 54
4.8.2.1 Work Breakdown structure (WBS) 54
4.8.2.2 Activity chart / Network 55
4.8.2.3 CPM and PERT 59
4.8.2.4 GANTT Charts 76
4.9 SOFTWARE PROJECT ESTIMATION 79
4.9.1 Software metrics in project estimation 80
4.9.2 Types of software metrics 81
4.9.3 Qualities of software metrics 81
4.9.4 Product metrics 82
4.9.4.1 Lines of codes (LOCs) 82
4.9.4.2 Function Points (FPs) 83
4.9.4.3 Feature Point metrics 87
4.9.5 Software project estimation techniques 87
4.9.6 Cylcomatic complexity 98
4.9.6.1 Program Control Flow Graph (CFG) 99
4.9.6.2 Advanages of cyclomatic compelxity 100
4.9.6.3 Disadvantages 100
4.10 ESTIMATION ON STAFFING 104
4.10.1 Rayleigh’s model 104
4.11 TEAM STRUCTURE 108
4.12 SOFTWATE RISK MANAGEMENT 109
4.12.1 Risk management activities 110
4.12.2 Risk control 112
SUMMARY 113
EXERCISE 113
C H A P T E R . 5 . REQUIRMENT ENGINEERING
5.1 INTRODUCTION 116
5.2 PROBLEM ANALYSIS AND PRODUCT DESCRIPTION 117
5.3 REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING (RE) 117
5.3.1 Requirements elicitation 118
5.3.2 Requirements analysis 120
5.3.3 Requirements sepcification 120
5.3.4 Modeling the system 120
5.3.5 Requirements validation 121
5.3.6 Requirements management 121
9. 5.4 CONDUCTING A REQUIREMENTS STUDY 121
5.5 FACILITATED APPLICATION SPECIFICATION TECHNIQUES (FAST) 122
5.6 IMPACT OF PROTOTYPING ON REQUIREMENTS 123
5.7 USES OF THE SRS 124
5.8 WHAT OUGHT TO BE INCLUDED IN THE SRS ? 125
5.8.1 Behavioral Requirements 125
5.8.2 Non-behavioral Requirements 125
5.9 EXCLUSION OF PROJECT REQUIREMENTS FROM SRS 125
5.10 EXCLUSION OF DESIGN FROM SRS 125
5.11 EXCLUSION OF PRODUCT ASSURANCE PLANS FROM SRS 125
5.12 ATTRIBUTES OF HIGH QUALITY SRS 126
5.13 GENERAL FORMAT OF A SRS 128
5.14 STANDARDS IN SRS 128
5.15 AN APPROVED FORMAT FOR SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
SPECIFICATIONS(S.R.S) 136
5.16 SRS : ALIVE EXAMPLE 141
SUMMARY 155
EXERCISES 156
C H A P T E R . 6 . SOFTWARE DESIGN & CODING
6.1 INTRODUCTION TO SOFTWARE DESIGN 157
6.2 DEFINITIONS 157
6.3 DESIGN PROCESS 158
6.3.1 Interface Design 159
6.3.2 Architectural Design 159
6.3.2.1 Assessment of Architectural Design 160
6.3.3 Detailed Design 161
6.4 DESIGN CHARACTERISTICS 161
6.5 CRITERIA FOR QUALITY DESIGN 161
6.6 PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN 162
6.6.1 Modularity and Partitioning 162
6.6.2 Coupling 163
6.6.3 Cohesion 166
6.6.4 Span of Control 170
6.6.5 Module Size 170
6.6.6 Shared Use 171
6.7 IEEE RECOMMENDED DDS [DESIGN DOCUMENT SPECIFICATION]
OR SDD [SOFTWARE DESIGN DOCUMENT] 171
6.7.1 Content description of SDD / DDS 172
6.7.2 Organisation of SDD 174
6.8 USER INTERFACE DESIGN 175
6.8.1 Graphical User Interface (GUI) vs.
Character- based User Interface (CUI) 176
6.8.2 Classification of User Interface 178
6.8.3 Qualities of good User Interface Design (UID) 179
6.8.4 User Interface Design Principle 180
6.8.5 Elements for user interface Design 180
6.8.6 Graphical user interface 181
10. 6.8.6.1 Elements of GUI design 182
6.8.6.2 Window Management System (WMS) 187
6.8.6.2.1 X-Window system 189
6.9 SOFTWARE DESIGN METHODS 195
6.9.1 Function-Oriented Design 196
6.9.2 Data Structure Based Design 197
6.9.2.1 Jackson Systems Development 197
6.9.2.2 Warnier-Orr’System Design 199
6.9.3 Object-Oriented Design Methods 201
6.9.3.1 Benefits of OOD 202
6.9.3.2 Types of OOD Methods 202
6.9.4 Reuse-Based Design Methods 203
6.9.5 Criteria for selecting a software Design Method 203
6.10 INTRODUCTION TO SOFTWARE CODING 204
6.10.1 Coding Standards 204
6.10.2 Coding Conventions 205
6.10.3 Programming Style 207
6.10.3.1 Importance of Programming Style 207
6.10.3.2 General Program Style 207
6.10.3.3 Good Programming Style 208
6.10.3.4 Good Programming StyleAids 208
6.10.4 System Verification 209
6.10.4.1 Program Testing 209
6.10.4.2 Reviews of Design and Code 210
6.10.5 Code Inspections 210
6.10.5.1 Code Inspection Process 211
6.10.5.2 Checklist for Code Inspections 212
6.10.5.3 Benefits of Code Inspections 213
6.10.6 Code Reviews and Walkthroughs 213
6.10.6.1 Rules for Code Reviews and Walk-throughs 214
6.10.6.2 Benefits of Code Reviews and Walkthroughs 214
6.10.6.3 Limitations of Code Reviews and Walkthroughs 214
6.10.7 Coding Tools215
6.10.8 Documents Generated From Coding 215
SUMMARY 215
EXERCISE 216
C H A P T E R . 7 . SOFTWARE TESTING
7.1 INTRODUCTION 219
7.2 TESTING AND SDLC : AN INTER-RELATIONSHIP 219
7.3 TESTING TERMINOLOGIES 220
7.4 DEFINITIONS OF SOFTWARE TESTING 221
7.5 PRINCIPLES OF TESTING 221
7.6 OBJECTIVES OF TESTING 222
7.7 LEVELS OF TESTING 222
7.7.1 Unit testing 223
7.7.2 Integration testing / Interface testing 225
7.7.3 System testing 230
7.8 BLACK BOX (FUNCTIONAL) TESTING 231
11. 7.9 WHITE BOX TESTING / STRUCTURAL TESTING 232
7.10 STATIC TESTING STRATEGIES : 235
7.11 FORMAL TECHNICAL REVIEWS 236
7.12 DEBUGGING 236
7.12.1 Debugging process 237
7.13 SPECIAL SYSTEM TESTS 238
SUMMARY 239
EXERCISES 239
C H A P T E R . 8 . SOFTWARE CERTIFICATION
8.1 INTRODUCTION 240
8.2 VERIFICATION AND VALIDATION 241
8.3 SOFTWARE QUALITY ASSURANCE 241
8.3.1 SQA objectives 242
8.3.2 SQA plan 242
8.4 SOFTWARE QUALITY 243
8.4.1 Classification of software quality 243
8.4.2 Software quality attributes 243
8.4.3 McCall’s quality factors 244
8.4.3.1 Product operation quality factors 244
8.4.3.2 Product revision factors 245
8.4.3.3 Product transition quality factors 245
8.4.4 Criteria for software quality 245
8.4.5 Quality representation 245
8.4.6 Importance of software quality 246
8.5 CAPABILITY MATURITY MODEL (SEI - CMM) 246
8.6 INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ORGANISATION (ISO) 249
8.6.1 Need of ISO certification for software industry 249
8.6.2 Steps for ISO 9000 certification 249
8.6.3 Benefits of ISO-9000 certification 250
8.6.4 Uses of ISO 250
8.6.5 Comparison between ISO 9000 certification and SEI-CMM 251
8.6.6 Classification of failures 252
8.6.7 Limitation of ISO 9000 certification 252
8.7 RELIABILITY ISSUES 252
8.7.1 Software reliability specification 253
8.7.2 Reliability terminologies 253
8.7.3 Reliability metrics 253
8.7.4 Measurement of Reliability and Availability 254
8.7.5 Reliability growth modelling 256
8.8 PERSONAL SOFTWARE PROCESS 258
8.8.1 PSP planning258
8.9 SIX SIGMA 259
8.9.1 Objectives 259
SUMMARY 260
EXERCISES 260
12. C H A P T E R . 9 . SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE
9.1 INTRODUCTION 262
9.2 NEED FOR SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE 262
9.3 CATEGORIES OF MAINTENANCE 263
9.4 CHALLENGES IN MAINTENANCE 264
9.5 SOLUTION TO MAINTENANCE CHALLENGES 265
9.6 MAINTENANCE PROCESS 266
9.7 MAINTENANCE MODELS 267
9.7.1 Build and Fix model 267
9.7.2 Iterative enhancement model 268
9.7.3 Reuse - oriented model 269
9.7.4 Boehm’s model 270
9.7.5 Taute maintenance model 270
9.8 MAINTENANCE COST ESTIMATION 272
9.9 CHARACTERISTICS OF SOFTWARE EVOLUTION 273
9.10 SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT 276
9.10.1 Version and Releases 277
9.10.2 Version and Release management 278
9.10.3 What is Milestone and Deliverable ? 278
9.10.4 Software Configuration Management activities 278
9.11 CHANGE CONTROL PROCESS 282
SUMMARY 284
EXERCISES 284
C H A P T E R . 10 . SOFTWARE RE-ENGINEERING
10.1 INTRODUCTION 286
10.2 SOFTWARE RE-ENGINEERING PROCESS MODEL 287
10.2.1 Inventory analysis 288
10.2.2 Document restructuring 288
10.2.3 Reverse engineering 288
10.2.4 Code re-structuring 289
10.2.5 Data re-structuring 289
10.2.6 Forward engineering 289
10.3 ADVANTAGES OF SOFTWARE RE-ENGINEERING 289
10.4 REVERSE, FORWARD AND RE-ENGINEERING :
A COMPARATIVE STUDY 290
10.5 IMPORTANCE OF REVERSE ENGINEERING 290
10.6 REVERSE ENGINEERING PROCESS 290
10.7 LEVELS OF REVERSE ENGINEERING 291
10.7.1 Redocumentation 292
10.7.2 Structural redocumentation 292
10.7.3 Design Recovery 292
10.8 REVERSE ENGINEERING TOOLS 292
SUMMARY 293
EXERCISE 293
13. C H A P T E R . 11 . COMPUTER AIDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
11.1 INTRODUCTION 294
11.2 LEVELS OF CASE 295
11.3 ARCHITECTURE OF CASE ENVIRONMENT 295
11.3.1 User Interface / Interface Generator 296
11.3.2 Tools Management Services (Tools Set) 296
11.3.3 Object Management System (OMS) 296
11.3.4 Repository 296
11.4 BUILDING BLOCKS FOR CASE 297
11.5 CASE SUPPORT IN SOFTWARE LIFE CYCLE 297
11.6 OBJECTIVES OF CASE 299
11.7 CASE REPOSITORY 300
11.8 CHARACTERISTICS OF CASE TOOLS 302
11.9 CLASSIFICATION OF CASE TOOLS 302
11.10 CATEGORIES OF CASE TOOLS 303
11.11 ADVANTAGES OF CASE TOOLS 305
11.12 DISADVANTAGES OF CASE TOOLS 305
SUMMARY 306
EXERCISES 306
C H A P T E R . 12 . UNIFIED MODELING LANGUGE
12.1 INTRODUCTION 307
12.2 MODEL 308
12.3 THE UML 308
12.4 UML ARCHITECTURE 310
12.5 UML FOUNDATIONS 311
12.6 RULES OF THE UML 313
12.7 COMMON MECHANISMS IN UML 313
12.8 USE CASE DIAGRAM 314
12.9 CLASS DIAGRAM 316
12.9.1 Relationship in class Diagram 317
12.9.2 Extensibility mechanisms 322
12.9.3 Example of UML Class Diagram 324
12.9.4 Meta Model 324
12.10 INTERACTION DIAGRAMS 325
12.10.1 Sequencediagrams 325
12.10.2 Collaboration diagrams 327
12.11 STATE-CHART DIAGRAM 328
12.12 ACTIVITY DIAGRAM 330
12.13 OBJECT DIAGRAM 332
12.14 IMPLEMENTATION DIAGRAMS 332
12.14.1 Component Diagram 332
12.14.2 Deployment Diagram 333
12.15 PACKAGES AND MODEL MANAGEMENT 334
12.16 OBJECT CONSTRAINT LANGUAGE 336
12.17 MODELING PATTERNS & FRAMEWORKS IN UML 336
14. 12.17.1 Patterns 336
12.17.2 Frameworks 338
12.18 UML COMPATIBILITY 339
SUMMARY 340
EXERCISE 340
C H A P T E R . 13 . OBJECT ORIENTED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
13.1 INTRODUCTION 341
13.2 OBJECT ORIENTED TERMINOLOGIES 342
13.3 OBJECT ORIENTED SDLC
(SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE) 343
13.3.1 Objectives of Object Oriented SDLC 343
13.3.2 The Software Development Process 345
13.3.2.1 Object-Oriented Requirements Analysis (OORA) 346
13.3.2.2 Object-Oriented Analysis (OOA) 346
13.3.2.3 Object-Oriented Design (OOD) 347
13.3.2.4 Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) 347
13.4 MERITS OF OBJECT ORIENTED SOFTWARE 354
13.5 DEMERITS OF OBJECT ORIENTED SOFTWARE 354
13.6 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OOA AND OOD 354
13.7 OOPS PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES 355
SUMMARY 357
EXERCISE 357
C H A P T E R . 14 . SOFTWARE & TOOLS
14.1 INTRODUCTION 358
14.2 ANALYSIS TOOLS 359
14.3 DESIGN TOOLS 359
14.4 DEVELOPMENT TOOLS 359
14.5 TOOLS FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES 360
14.5.1 Tools for Documenting procedure and Decision making 360
14.5.2 Tools for Data Flow strategy or Data Flow Analysis 363
14.5.3 Tools for Proto-typing 396
SUMMARY 398
EXERCISE 398
BIBLIOGRAPHY 399
ppp
15. 1.1 INTRODUCTION
Computers; Amazing machines !
We are living and breathing in the computer age and the computer has gradually become
such a basic necessity of life that it is tough to imagine the life without it.
Computers are affecting every sphere of our life, in government, business, education,
entertainment, defence, medical science, space, research, weather forecast, legal practice,
even in our personal and day-to-day life.
* To think of anything without computer is meaningless.
A computer system can be viewed as a flexible electronic / mechanical device, responds
inputs (data), processes and produces outputs (information).
Basically computer system is framed using the following elements.
* Processing unit
* Memory unit
* Input unit
* Output unit.
* Program.
Now, you must be wandering, what is so special about this machine that people from
diversified fields can use it so flexibly for entirely different functions ?
The answer is that the computer is programmable i.e. it all depends upon what program it
is using for performing a particular function.
What is a program ? In very simple language we can say that a “program is a set of
instructions tells the computer what to do.”
A computer system can be broadly disintegrated into two parts.
* the hardware part
* the software part.
è Software runs the Hardwares
Software is a general term, which is used to described a set of instruction (more precisely
programs) written with the help of some predefined/planned format / procedures.
Software may be a program or a set of programs.
1
C
H
A
P
T
E
R
Introduction to software
Engineering
16. 2 Fundamentals of Software Engineering
The importance of software can be viewed through an example, say human brain vs
human body.
All parts of human body are activated / controlled by the human brain with predefined
instructions (program) fed into it.
The attitude / activities and response of a person are truly based on the “mantras” (i.e. the
software) given to the human brain.
è The change in Software influences Hardwares
1.2 SOFTWARE CLASSES
It is classified into two categories.
l Generic software
l Customised software
Generic software is designed for a wide range of market whose requirements are common,
stable and well understood.
Example - Operating system software
Customised (Bespoke product) software is designed for a customer where domain,
environment and requirements are unique to the customer only.
Example - Application software :
1.3 TYPES OF SOFTWARE
Software generally of three types :
- System software
- Application software
- Utility software
1.3.1 System Software
This consists of alltheprograms,languages anddocumentationssuppliedbythemanufacturer
of the computer system for its exclusive use.
Example - Operating system, BIOS programs, Platform oriented software, It also comes
under system software
Example - Interpreter, Compiler.
1.3.2 Application Software
These programs are developed by professional groups for some specific application /
functions. These are also called user-based software.
Example - Pay roll system, Banking software.
Embedded software.
1.3.3 Utility Software
This may be considered as an application software / system support software which is
very often used in the development of wide range of programs.
Example - MS-Office, Compilers, Interpreters, Debugger etc.
17. 3
Software Engineering
1.4 ROLE OF SOFTWARE
The key role of software is to perform tasks for the user by activating and controlling the
computer hardwares.
It can be shown in the following fig. 1.1
User-hardware interfacing through software
Software applications are categorised into five types for convenience. They are system
software, business software, design and scientific software, embedded software and
artificial intelligence software.
Software application category
System software enables and provide services to software applications loaded on the
computer system. It regulates the system perforance and helps to run user-initiated
applications.
Fig. - 1.1
Fig. - 1.2
18. 4 Fundamentals of Software Engineering
Business software can be a generic product or customised product. Some are common to
all industries and some deal with industry specific information processing requirements.
Design / scientific softwares deal with processing requirements in their specific field.
These Softwares service the need of drawing, drafting, modeling, load calculation, building
planning and designing using CAD/CAM, analysis of engineering data, statistical data
for interpretation and decision making.
Embedded softwares are used to perform specific funtion under control conditions and
further embedded into hardware as a part of large system. Ex. in Robotics
Artificial Intelligence software (AI) uses non-numeric algorithms, which use the data
and information generated in the system to solve complex problems.
1.5 WHAT IS A GOOD SOFTWARE ?
A software can have number of attributes, which together will decide whether it is a good or
bad one. The definition of a good software varies with respect to the person who evaluates it.
l The customer will decide on the basis of the cost-effectiveness of the software.
l The user group will consider it’s usability and reliability.
l The software engineer will look at its maintainability and efficiency.
The measure of good software is the customer satisfaction, cost and budget constraint
fulfillment. Customer satisfaction depends on the degree to which customer requirements
and expectations have been met.
The minimum essential attributes of a good software are maintainability, dependability,
efficiency and usability.
Table- 1.1 : Generic comparison of software with hardware.
Generation Hardwares Softwares
1st Generation
1944 - 1955
Vaccum tubes Machine language
2nd Generation-1956 Transistors Symbolic language
3rd Generation
1964-1970
Integrated circuit High level language
FORTRAN, ALGOL. etc.
4th Generation
1971-1990
Large scale
Integrated circuits.
PLI Basic
PASCALS etc.
5th Generation
1990 +
Very Large Scale
Integration
C, C++, Visual Basic,
Fox-pro, DBMS, Prolog,
LISP etc.
è The rate of advancement in software is more as compare to hardware
1.6 PROGRAM VS. SOFTWARE
People say “program is a software and software is a program or set of programs”. So how
to distinguish ?
19. 5
Software Engineering
Program Software
Program vs software
Simple, program comes under the software category or program is a subset of software.A
program can be viewed as
- a set of instructions written for a specific task by individuals.
- small in size and limited functionality.
- it does not hold all the properties of what actually it is intended for.
[size, portability, compatibility, entertaining wide range of inputs, user friendly etc. and lot
more...]
è Program = source code + object code
A software is a broad sense of developing programs that satisfies the criteria like
user friendly
portable
maintainable
fitsto wide range of environments
error / risk free
cost effective etc.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Software consists not only program codes but also of all associated documents (design,
testing operating procedures which includes user manuals and operational manuals.)
è Software = program + documentation + operating procedures
1.7 SOFTWARE CAN BE VIEWED AS A PRODUCT. HOW ?
A product (consumable) which is available in the market is exhausted for the users.
The demand of a product is based on its price, quality, durability. When the demand of the
customers changes w.r.t their taste / use, manufacturers need to modify / redesign these
existing products or to introduce new products time-to-time.
Fig. - 1.3
22. CHAPTER VI
SOME FEMINIST LIES AND FALLACIES
By Feminist lies I understand false statements put forward by
persons, many of whom should be perfectly well aware that they are
false, apparently with the deliberate intention of misleading public
opinion as to the real position of woman before the law. By fallacies
I understand statements doubtless dictated by Feminist
prepossessions or Feminist bias, but not necessarily suggesting
conscious or deliberate mala fides.
Of the first order, the statements are made apparently with
intentional dishonesty in so far as many of the persons making them
are concerned, since we may reasonably suppose them to have
intelligence and knowledge enough to be aware that they are
contrary to fact. The talk about the wife being a chattel, for
example, is so palpably absurd in the face of the existing law that it
is nowadays scarcely worth making (although we do hear it
occasionally even now). But it was not even true under the old
common law of England, which, for certain disabilities on the one
hand, conceded to the wife certain corresponding privileges on the
other. The law of husband and wife, as modified by statute in the
course of the nineteenth century, as I have often enough had
occasion to point out, is a monument of legalised tyranny over the
husband in the interests of the wife.
If in the face of the facts the word chattel, as applied to the wife,
has become a little too preposterous even for Feminist controversial
methods, there is another falsehood scarcely less brazen that we
hear from Feminist fanatics every day. The wife, we are told, is the
only unpaid servant! A more blatant lie could scarcely be imagined.
As every educated person possessing the slightest acquaintance with
the laws of England knows, the law requires the husband to
maintain his wife in a manner according with his own social position;
23. has, in other words, to feed, clothe and afford her all reasonable
luxuries, which the law, with a view to the economic standing of the
husband, regards as necessaries. This although the husband has no
claim on the wife’s property or income, however wealthy she may
be. Furthermore, it need scarcely be said, a servant who is
inefficient, lazy, or otherwise intolerable, can be dismissed or her
wage can be lowered. Not so that privileged person, the legally
wedded wife. It matters not whether she perform her duties well,
badly, indifferently, or not at all, the husband’s legal obligations
remain just the same. It will be seen, therefore, that the wife in any
case receives from the husband economic advantages compared
with which the wages of the most highly paid servant in existence
are a mere pauper’s pittance. This talk we hear ad nauseam, from
the Feminist side, of the wife being an “unpaid servant,” is typical of
the whole Feminist agitation. We find the same deliberate and
unscrupulous dishonesty characterising it throughout. Facts are not
merely perverted or exaggerated, they are simply turned upside
down.
Another statement commonly made is that women’s lower wages
as compared with men’s is the result of not possessing the
parliamentary franchise. Now this statement, though not perhaps
bearing on its face the wilful deception characterising the one just
mentioned, is not any the less a perversion of economic fact, and we
can hardly regard it otherwise than as intentional. It is quite clear
that up to date the wages of men have not been raised by
legislation, and yet sections of the working classes have possessed
the franchise at least since 1867. What legislation has done for the
men has been simply to remove obstacles in the way of industrial
organisation on the part of the workman in freeing the trade unions
from disabilities, and even this was begun, owing to working-class
pressure from outside, long before—as long ago as the twenties of
the last century under the auspices of Joseph Hume and Francis
Place. Now women’s unions enjoy precisely the same freedom as
men’s unions, and nothing stands in the way of working women
organising and agitating for higher wages. Those who talk of the
24. franchise as being necessary for working women in order to obtain
equal industrial and economic advantages with working men must
realise perfectly well that they are performing the oratorical
operation colloquially known as “talking through their hat.” The
reasons why the wages of women workers are lower than those of
men, whatever else may be their grounds, and these are, I think,
pretty obvious, clearly are not traceable to anything which the
concession of the franchise would remove. If it be suggested that a
law could be enacted compulsorily enforcing equal rates of payment
for women as for men, what the result would be the merest tyro in
such matters can foresee—to wit, that it would mean the wholesale
displacement of female by male labour over large branches of
industry, and this, we imagine, is not precisely what the advocates of
female suffrage are desirous of effecting.
Male labour, owing to its greater efficiency and other causes,
being generally preferred by employers to female labour, it is not
likely that, even for the sake of female beaux yeux, they are going to
accept female labour in the place of male, on an equal wage basis.
All this, of course, is quite apart from the question referred to on a
previous page, as to the economic responsibilities in the interests of
women, which our Feminist law-makers have saddled on the man—
namely, the responsibility of the husband, and the husband alone,
for the maintenance of his wife and family, obligations from anything
corresponding to which the female sex is wholly free.
In a leaflet issued by the “Men’s Federation for Women’s Suffrage”
it is affirmed that “many laws are on the statute book which inflict
injustice on Women.” We challenge this statement as an unmitigated
falsehood. Its makers ought to know perfectly well that they cannot
justify it. There are no laws on the statute book inflicting injustice on
women as a Sex, but there are many laws inflicting injustice on men
in the supposed interests of women. The worn-out tag which has so
long done duty with Feminists in this connection—viz. the rule of the
Divorce Court, that in order to procure divorce a wife has to prove
cruelty as well as adultery on the part of a husband, whereas a
husband has to prove adultery alone on the part of a wife—has
25. already been dealt with and its rottenness as a specimen of a
grievance sufficiently exposed in this work and elsewhere by the
present writer. Is what the authors of the leaflet may possibly have
in their mind (if they have anything at all) when they talk about
statutes inflicting injustice on women, that the law does not carry
sex vindictiveness against men far enough to please them? With all
its flogging, penal servitude, hard labour and the rest, for offences
against women, some of them of a comparatively trivial kind, does
the law as regards severity on men not even yet satisfy the ferocious
Feminist souls of the members of the “Men’s Federation for Women’s
Suffrage”? This is the only explanation of the statement in question
other than that it is sheer bald bluff designed to mislead those
ignorant of the law.
Another flagrant falsehood perpetually being dinned into our ears
by the suffragists is the statement that women have to obey the
same laws as men. The conclusion drawn from this false statement
is, of course, that since they have to obey these laws equally with
men, they have an equal claim with men to take part in the making
or the modifying of them. Now without pausing to consider the
fallacy underlying the conclusion, we would point out that it is
sufficient for our present purpose to call attention to the falsity of
the initial assumption itself. It needs only one who follows current
events and reads his newspaper with impartial mind to see that to
allege that women have to, in the true sense of the words (i.e. are
compelled to), obey the same laws as men is a glaringly mendacious
statement. It is unnecessary in this place to go over once more the
mass of evidence comprised in previous writings of my own—e.g. in
the pamphlet, “The Legal Subjection of Man” (Twentieth Century
Press), in the article, “A Creature of Privilege” (Fortnightly Review,
November 1911), and elsewhere in the present volume, illustrating
the unquestionable fact that though in theory women may have to
obey the law as men have, yet in practice they are absolved from all
the more serious consequences men have to suffer when they
disobey it. The treatment recently accorded to the suffragettes for
crimes such as wilful damage and arson, not to speak of their
26. previous prison treatment when convicted for obstruction,
disturbance and minor police misdemeanours, is a proof, writ large,
of the mendacity of the statement that women no less than men
have to obey the laws of the country, so far, that is, as any real
meaning is attached to this phrase.
Another suffragist lie which is invariably allowed to pass muster
by default, save for an occasional protest by the present writer, is
the assumption that the English law draws a distinction as regards
prison treatment, etc., as between political and non-political
offenders. Everyone with even the most elementary legal knowledge
is aware that no such distinction has ever been recognised or
suggested by the English law—at least until the prison ordinance
made quite recently, expressly to please the suffragettes, by Mr
Winston Churchill when Home Secretary. However desirable many
may consider such a distinction to be, nothing is more indubitable
than the fact that it has never previously obtained in the letter or
practice of the law of England. And yet, without a word of
contradiction from those who know better, arguments and protests
galore have been fabricated on the suffragist side, based solely on
this impudently false assumption.
Misdemeanours and crimes at common law, when wilfully
committed, have in all countries always remained misdemeanours
and crimes, whatever motive can be conveniently put forward to
account for them. A political offence has always meant the
expression of opinions or the advocacy of measures or acts (not of
the nature of common law crimes) which are in contravention of the
existing law—e.g. a “libel” on the constituted authorities of the
State, or the forcible disregard of a law or police regulation in
hindrance of the right of public speech or meeting. This is what is
meant by political offence in any country recognising such as a
special class of offence entitling those committing it to special
treatment. This is so where the matter refers to the internal
legislation of the country. Where the question of extradition comes in
the definition of political offence is, of course, wider. Take the
extreme case, that of the assassination of a ruler or functionary,
27. especially in a despotic State, where free Press and the free
expression of opinion generally do not exist. This is undoubtedly a
political, not a common law offence, in so far as other countries are
concerned, and hence the perpetrator of such a deed has the right
to claim immunity, on this ground, from extradition. The position
assumable is, that under despotic conditions the progressive man is
at war with the despot and those exercising authority under him;
therefore, in killing the despot or the repositories of despotic
authority, he is striking directly at the enemy. It would, however, be
absurd for the agent in a deed of this sort to expect special political
treatment within the jurisdiction of the State itself immediately
concerned. As a matter of fact he never does so. Fancy a Russian
Nihilist, when brought to trial, whining that he is a political offender
and hence to be exempted from all harsh treatment! No, the Nihilist
has too much self-respect to make himself ridiculous in this way.
Hardly even the maddest Terrorist Anarchist would make such a
claim. For example, the French law recognises the distinction
between political and common law offences. But for all this the
bande tragique, Bonnot and his associates, did not receive any
benefit from the distinction or even claim to do so, though otherwise
they were loud enough in proclaiming the political motives inspiring
them. Even as regards extradition, running amuck at large, setting
fire promiscuously to private buildings or injuring the ordinary non-
political citizen, as a “protest,” would not legally come into the
category of political offences and hence protect their authors from
being surrendered as ordinary criminals.
The real fact, of course, is that all this talk on the part of
suffragettes and their backers about “political” offences and
“political” prison treatment is only a mean and underhand way of
trying to secure special sex privileges under false pretences. Those
who talk the loudest in the strain in question know this perfectly
well.
These falsehoods are dangerous, in spite of what one would think
ought to be their obvious character as such, by reason of the
psychological fact that you only require to repeat a lie often enough,
28. provided you are uncontradicted, in order for the aforesaid lie to be
received as established truth by the mass of mankind (“mostly fools,”
as Carlyle had it).
It is a preposterous claim, I contend, that any misdemeanour and
a fortiori any felony has, law apart, and even from a merely ethical
point of view, any claim to special consideration and leniency on the
bare declaration of the felon or misdemeanant that it had been
dictated by political motive. In no country, at any time, has the mere
assertion of political motive been held to bring an ordinary crime
within the sphere of treatment of political offences. According to the
legal and ethical logic of the suffragettes, it is perfectly open for
them to set on fire theatres, churches and houses, and even to
shoot down the harmless passer-by in the street, and claim the
treatment of first-class misdemeanants on the ground that the act
was done as a protest against some political grievance under which
they imagined themselves to be labouring. The absurdity of the
suggestion is evident on its mere statement. And yet the above
preposterous assumption has been suffered equally with the one last
noted to pass virtually without protest, and what is more serious, it
has been acted upon by the authorities as though it were indubitably
sound law as well as sound ethics! It may be pointed out that what
has cost many an Irish Fenian in the old days, and many a Terrorist
Anarchist at a later date, a sentence of penal servitude for life, can
be indulged in by modern suffragettes at the expense of a few
weeks’ imprisonment in the first or second division. Of course, this
whole talk of “political offences,” when they are, on the face of
them, mere common crimes, is purely and simply a trick designed to
shield the cowardly and contemptible female creatures who
perpetrate these senseless and dastardly outrages from the
punishment they deserve and would receive if they had not the good
fortune to be of the privileged sex. In the case of men this impudent
nonsense would, of course, never have been put forward, and, if it
had, would have been summarily laughed out of court. That it
should be necessary to point out these things in so many words is a
29. striking illustration of the moral and intellectual atrophy produced by
Feminism in the public mind.
There is another falsehood we often hear by way of condoning
the infamous outrages of the suffragettes. The excuse is often
offered when the illogical pointlessness of the “militant” methods of
the modern suffragette are in question: “Oh! men have also done
the same things: men have used violence to attain political ends!”
Now the fallacy involved in this retort is plain enough.
It may be perfectly true that men have used violence to attain
their ends on occasion. But to assert this fact in the connection in
question is purely irrelevant. There is violence and violence. It is
absolutely false to say that men have ever adopted purposeless and
inane violence as a policy. The violence of men has always had an
intelligible relation to the ends they had in view, either proximate or
ultimate. They pulled down Hyde Park railings in 1866. Good! But
why was this? Because they wanted to hold a meeting, and found
the park closed against them, the destruction of the railings being
the only means of gaining access to the park. Again, the Reform Bill
riots of 1831 were at least all directed against Government property
and governmental persons—that is, the enemy with whom they were
at war. In most cases, as at Bristol and Nottingham, there was (as in
that of the Hyde Park railings) a very definite and immediate object
in the violence and destruction committed—namely, the release of
persons imprisoned for the part they had taken in the Reform
movement, by the destruction of the gaols where they were
confined. What conceivable analogy have these things with a policy
of destroying private property, setting fire to tea pavilions, burning
boat-builders’ stock-in-trade, destroying private houses, poisoning
pet dogs, upsetting jockeys, defacing people’s correspondence,
including the postal orders of the poor, mutilating books in a college
library, pictures in a public gallery, etc., etc.? And all these, bien
entendu, not openly and in course of a riot, but furtively, in the
pursuit of a deliberately premeditated policy! Have, I ask, men ever,
in the course of the world’s history, committed mean, futile and
dastardly crimes such as these in pursuit of any political or public
30. end? There can be but one answer to this question. Every reader
must know that there is no analogy whatever between suffragettes’
“militancy” and the violence and crimes of which men may have
been guilty. Even the Terrorist Anarchist, however wrong-headed he
may be, and however much his deeds may be deemed morally
reprehensible, is at least logical in his actions, in so far as the latter
have always had some definite bearing on his political ends and
were not mere senseless “running amuck.” The utterly disconnected,
meaningless and wanton character signalising the policy of the
“militant” suffragettes would of itself suffice to furnish a conclusive
argument for the incapacity of the female intellect to think logically
or politically, and hence against the concession to women of public
powers, political, judicial or otherwise.
Another fallacy analogous to the preceding, inasmuch as it seeks
to counterbalance female defects and weaknesses by the false
allegation of corresponding deficiencies in men, is the Feminist retort
sometimes heard when the question of hysteria in women is raised:
“Oh! men can also suffer from hysteria!” This has been already dealt
with in an earlier chapter, but for the sake of completing the list of
prominent Feminist fallacies I restate it concisely here. Now as we
have seen it is exceedingly doubtful whether this statement is true in
any sense whatever. There are eminent authorities who would deny
that men ever have true hysteria. There are others, of course, again,
who would extend the term hysteria so as to include every form of
neurasthenic disturbance. The question is largely, with many persons
who discuss the subject, one of terminology. It suffices here to cut
short quibbling on this score. For the nonce, let us drop the word
hysteria and formulate the matter as follows:—Women are
frequently subject to a pathological mental condition, differing in
different cases but offering certain well-marked features in common,
a condition which seldom, if ever, occurs in men. This I take to be an
incontrovertible proposition based upon experience which will be
admitted by every impartial person.
Now the existence of the so-called hysterical man I have hitherto
found to be attested on personal experience solely by certain
31. Feminist medical practitioners who allege that they have met with
him in their consulting-rooms. His existence is thus vouchsafed for
just as the reality of the sea-serpent is vouchsafed for by certain sea
captains or other ancient mariners. Far be it from me to impugn the
ability, still less the integrity, of these worthy persons. But in either
case I may have my doubts as to the accuracy of their observation
or of their diagnosis. It may be that the sea-serpent exists and it
may be that hysteria is at times discoverable in male persons. But
while a conclusive proof of the discovery of a single sea-serpent of
the orthodox pattern would go far to justify the yarn of the ancient
mariner, the proof of the occurrence, in an occasional case, of
hysteria in men, would not by far justify the implied contention that
hysteria is not essentially a female malady. If hysterical men are as
common a phenomenon as certain hard-pressed Feminists would
make out, what I want to know is: Where are they? While we come
upon symptoms which would be commonly attributed to hysteria in
well-nigh every second or third woman of whose life we have any
intimate knowledge, how often do we find in men symptoms in any
way resembling these? In my own experience I have come across
but two cases of men giving indications of a temperament in any
way analogous to that of the “hysterical woman.” After all, the
experience of the average layman, and in this I contend my own is
more or less typical, is more important in the case of a malady
manifesting itself in symptoms obvious to common observation, such
as the one we are considering, than that of the medical practitioner,
who by reason of his profession would be especially likely to see
cases, if there were any at all, however few they might be. The
possibility, moreover, at least suggests itself, that the latter may
often mistake for hysteria (using the word in the sense commonly
applied to the symptoms presented by women) symptoms resulting
from general neurasthenia or even from purely extraneous causes,
such as alcohol, drugs, etc. That this is sometimes the case is hardly
open to question. That the pathological mental symptoms referred to
as prevalent in the female, whether we attribute them to hysteria or
not, are rarely if ever found in the male sex is an undoubted fact.
The rose, it is said, is as sweet by any other name, and whether we
32. term these affections symptoms of hysteria, or describe them as
hysteria itself, or deny that they have anything to go with “true
hysteria,” their existence and frequency in the female sex remains
nevertheless a fact. No! whether some of the symptoms of hysteria,
“true” or “so-called,” are occasionally to be found in men or not,
every impartial person must admit that they are extremely rare,
whereas as regards certain pathological mental symptoms, common
in women and popularly identified (rightly or wrongly) with hysteria,
there is, I contend, little evidence of their occurring in men at all.
Wriggle and prevaricate as they may, it is impossible for Suffragists
and Feminists to successfully evade the undoubted truth that the
mentality of women is characterised constitutionally by a general
instability, manifesting itself in pathological symptoms radically
differing in nature and in frequency from any that obtain in men.
Very conspicuous among the fallacies that have done yeoman
service in the Feminist Movement is the assumption that women are
constitutionally the “weaker sex.” This has also been discussed by us
in Chapter II., but the latter may again be supplemented here by a
few further remarks, so deeply rooted is this fallacy in public opinion.
The reason of the unquestioned acceptance of the assumption is
partly due to a confusion of two things under one name. The terms,
“bodily strength” and “bodily weakness” cover two distinct facts. The
attribution of greater bodily weakness to the female sex than to the
male undoubtedly expresses a truth, but no less does the attribution
of greater bodily strength to the female than to the male sex equally
express a truth. In size, weight and muscular development, average
man has an unquestionable, and in most cases enormous,
advantage over average woman. It is in this sense that the bodily
structure of the human female can with some show of justice be
described as frail. On the other hand, as regards tenacity of life,
recuperative power and what we may term toughness of
constitution, woman is without doubt considerably stronger than
man. Now this vigour of constitution may, of course, also be
described as bodily strength, and to this confusion the assumption of
33. the general frailty of the female bodily organism as compared with
the male has acquired general currency in the popular mind.
The most carefully controlled and reliable statistics of the
Registrar-General and other sources show the enormously greater
mortality of men than of women at all ages and under all conditions
of life. Under the age of five the evidence shows that 120 boys die
to every 100 girls. In adult life the Registrar-General shows that
diseases of the chest are the cause of nearly 40 per cent. more
deaths among men than among women. That violence and accident
should be the occasion of 150 per cent. more deaths amongst men
than women is accounted for, partly, at least, by the greater
exposure of men, although the enormous disparity would lead one
to suspect that here also the inferior resisting power in the male
constitution plays a not inconsiderable part in the result. The report
of the medical officer to the Local Government Board proves that
between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-five there is a startling
difference in numbers between the deaths of men and those of
women. The details for the year 1910 are as follows:—
Diseases Males Females
Nervous system 1614 1240
Heart 5762 5336
Blood vessels 3424 3298
Respiratory system 3110 2473
Digestive system 1769 1681
Kidneys, etc. 2241 1488
Acute infections 2259 1164
Violent deaths 1624 436
Various additional causes, connected with the more active and
anxious life of men, the greater strain to which they are subjected,
34. their greater exposure alike to infection and to accident, may explain
a certain percentage of the excessive death-rate of the male
population as opposed to the female, yet these explanations, even
allowing the utmost possible latitude to them, really only touch the
fringe of the difference, with the single exception of deaths from
violence and accident above alluded to, where liability and exposure
may account for a somewhat larger percentage. The great cause of
the discrepancy remains, without doubt, the enormously greater
potentiality of resistance, in other words of constitutional strength, in
the female bodily organism as compared with the male.
We must now deal at some length with a fallacy of some
importance, owing to the apparatus of learning with which it has
been set forth, to be found in Mr Lester F. Ward’s book, entitled
“Pure Sociology,” notwithstanding that its fallacious nature is plain
enough when analysed. Mr Ward terms his speculation the
“Gynœcocentric Theory,” by which he understands apparently the
Feminist dogma of the supreme importance of the female in the
scheme of humanity and nature generally. His arguments are largely
drawn from general biology, especially that of inferior organisms. He
traces the various processes of reproduction in the lower
departments of organic nature, subdivision, germination, budding,
etc., up to the earlier forms of bi-sexuality, culminating in
conjugation or true sexual union. His standpoint he thus states in
the terms of biological origins: “Although reproduction and sex are
two distinct things, and although a creature that reproduces without
sex cannot properly be called either male or female, still so
completely have these conceptions become blended in the popular
mind that a creature which actually brings forth offspring out of its
own body, is instinctively classed as female. The female is the fertile
sex, and whatever is fertile is looked upon as female. Assuredly it
would be absurd to look upon an organism propagating sexually as
male. Biologists have proceeded from this popular standpoint and
regularly speak of ‘mother cells,’ and ‘daughter cells.’ It, therefore,
does no violence to language or to science to say that life begins
with the female organism and is carried on a long distance by means
35. of females alone. In all the different forms of a-sexual reproduction,
from fission to parthenogenesis, the female may in this sense be
said to exist alone and perform all the functions of life, including
reproduction. In a word, life begins as female.”
In the above remarks it will be seen that Mr Ward, so to say,
jumps the claim of a-sexual organisms to be considered as female.
This, in itself a somewhat questionable proceeding, serves him as a
starting-point for his theory. The a-sexual female (?), he observes, is
not only primarily the original sex, but continues throughout, the
main trunk, though afterwards the male element is added “for the
purposes of fertilisation.” “Among millions of humble creatures,” says
Mr Ward, “the male is simply and solely a fertiliser.” The writer goes
on in his efforts to belittle the male sex in the sphere of biology.
“The gigantic female spider and the tiny male fertiliser, the Mantis
insect with its similarly large and ferocious female, bees, and
mosquitoes,” all are pressed into the service. Even the vegetable
kingdom, in so far as it shows signs of sex differentiation, is brought
into the lists in favour of his theory of female supremacy, or
“gynœcocentricism,” as he terms it.
This theory may be briefly stated as follows:—In the earliest
organisms displaying sex differentiation, it is the female which
represents the organism proper, the rudimentary male existing solely
for the purpose of the fertilisation of the female. This applies to most
of the lower forms of life in which the differentiation of sex obtains,
and in many insects, the Mantis being one of the cases specially
insisted upon by our author. The process of the development of the
male sex is by means of the sexual selection of the female. From
being a mere fertilising agent, gradually, as evolution proceeds, it
assumes the form and characteristics of an independent organism
like the original female trunk organism. But the latter continues to
maintain its supremacy in the life of the species, by means chiefly of
sexual selection, until the human period, i.e. more or less (!), for Mr
Ward is bound to admit signs of male superiority in the higher
vertebrates—viz. birds and mammals. This superiority manifests
itself in size, strength, ornamentation, alertness, etc. But it is with
36. man, with the advent of the reasoning faculty, and, as a
consequence, of human supremacy, that it becomes first
unmistakably manifest. This superiority, Mr Ward contends, has been
developed under the ægis of the sexual selection of the female, and
enabled cruel and wicked man to subject and enslave down-trodden
and oppressed woman, who has thus been crushed by a
Frankenstein of her own creation. Although in various earlier phases
of human organisation woman still maintains her social supremacy,
this state of affairs soon changes. Androcracy establishes itself, and
woman is reduced to the rôle of breeding the race and of being the
servant of man. Thus she has remained throughout the periods of
the higher barbarism and of civilisation. Our author regards the
lowest point of what he terms the degradation of woman to have
been reached in the past, and the last two centuries as having
witnessed a movement in the opposite direction—namely, towards
the emancipation of woman and equality between the sexes. (Cf.
“Pure Sociology,” chap. xiv., and especially pp. 290-377.)
The above is a brief, but, I think, not unfair skeleton statement of
the theory which Mr Lester Ward has elaborated in the work above
referred to, in great detail and with immense wealth of illustration.
But now I ask, granting the correctness of Mr Ward’s biological
premises and the accuracy of his exposition, and I am not specialist
enough to be capable of criticising these in detail: What does it all
amount to? The “business end” (as the Americans would say) of the
whole theory, it is quite evident, is to afford a plausible and scientific
basis for the Modern Feminist Movement, and thus to further its
practical pretensions. What Mr Ward terms the androcentric theory,
at least as regards man and the higher vertebrates, which is on the
face of it supported by the facts of human experience and has been
accepted well-nigh unanimously up to quite recent times, is,
according to him, all wrong. The male element in the universe of
living things is not the element of primary importance, and the
female element the secondary, but the converse is the case. For this
contention Mr Ward, as already pointed out, has, by dint of his
biological learning, succeeded at least in making out a case in so far
37. as lower forms of life are concerned. He has, however, to admit—a
fatal admission surely—that evolution has tended progressively to
break down the superiority of the female (by means, as he
contends, of her own sexual selection) and to transfer sex
supremacy to the male, according to Mr Ward, hitherto a secondary
being, and that this tendency becomes very obvious in most species
of birds and mammals. With the rise of man, however, out of the
pithecanthropos, the homosynosis, or by whatever other designation
we may call the intermediate organism between the purely animal
and the purely human, and the consequent supersession of instinct
as the dominant form of intelligence by reason, the question of
superiority, as Mr Ward candidly admits, is no longer doubtful, and
upon the unquestionable superiority of the male, in due course of
time, follows the unquestioned supremacy. It is clear then that,
granting the biological premises of our author that the lowest sexual
organisms are virtually female and that in the hermaphrodites the
female element predominates; that in the earliest forms of bi-
sexuality the fertilising or male element was merely an offshoot of
the female trunk and that this offshoot develops, mainly by means of
sexual selection on the part of the female, into an organism similar
to the latter; that not until we reach the higher vertebrates, the birds
and the mammals, do we find any traces of male superiority; and
that this superiority only becomes definite and obvious, leading to
male domination, in the human species—granting all this, I say, what
argument can be founded upon it in support of the equal value
physically, intellectually and morally of the female sex in human
society, or the desirability of its possessing equal political power with
men in such society? On the contrary, Mr Ward’s whole exposition,
with his biological facts of illustration, would seem to point rather in
the opposite direction. We seem surely to have here, if Mr Ward’s
premises be accepted as to the primitive insignificance of the male
element—at first overshadowed and dominated by the female stem,
but gradually evolving in importance, character and fruition, till we
arrive at man the highest product of evolution up to date—a
powerful argument for anti-Feminism. On Mr Ward’s own showing,
we find that incontestible superiority, both in size and power of body
38. and brain, has manifested itself in Androcracy, when the female is
relegated, in the natural course of things, to the function of child-
bearing. This, it can hardly be denied, is simply one more instance of
the general process of evolution, whereby the higher being is
evolved from the lower, at first weak and dependent upon its parent,
the latter remaining dominant until the new being reaches maturity,
when in its turn it becomes supreme, while that out of which it
developed, and of which it was first the mere offshoot, falls into the
background and becomes in its turn subordinate to its own product.
Let us turn now to another scientific fallacy, the result of a good
man struggling with adversity—i.e. a sound and honest scientific
investigator, but one who, at the same time, is either himself
obsessed with the principles of Feminism as with a religious dogma,
or else is nervously afraid of offending others who are. His attitude
reminds one of nothing so much as that of the orthodox geologist of
the first half of the nineteenth century, who wrote in mortal fear of
incurring the odium theologicum by his exposition of the facts of
geology, and who was therefore nervously anxious to persuade his
readers that the facts in question did not clash with the Mosaic
cosmogony as given in the Book of Genesis. With Mr Havelock Ellis
in his work, “Man and Woman,” it is not the dogma of Biblical
infallibility that he is concerned to defend, but a more modern
dogma, that of female equality, so dear to the heart of the Modern
Feminist. Mr Ellis’s efforts to evade the consequences of the scientific
truths he honestly proclaims are almost pathetic. One cannot help
noticing, after his exposition of some fact that goes dead against the
sex-equality theory as contended for by Feminists, the eagerness
with which he hastens to add some qualifying statement tending to
show that after all it is not so incompatible with the Feminist dogma
as it might appear at first sight.
The pièce de résistance, however, of Mr Havelock Ellis is
contained in his “conclusion.” The author has for his problem to get
over the obvious incompatibility of the truth he has himself
abundantly demonstrated in the course of his book, that the woman-
type, in every respect, physiological and psychological, approaches
39. the child-type, while the man-type, in its proper progress towards
maturity, increasingly diverges from it. The obvious implication of
this fact is surely plain, on the principle of the development of the
individual being a shorthand reproduction of the evolution of the
species, or, to express it in scientific phraseology, of ontogeny being
the abbreviated recapitulation of the stages presented by philogeny.
If we proceed on this well-accredited and otherwise universally
accepted principle of biology, the inference is clear enough—to wit,
that woman is, as Herbert Spencer and others have pointed out,
simply “undeveloped man”—in other words, that Woman represents
a lower stage of evolution than Man. Now this would obviously not
at all suit the book of Mr Ellis’s Feminism. Explained away it has to
be in some fashion or other. So our author is driven to the daring
expedient of throwing overboard one of the best established
generalisations of modern biology, and boldly declaring that the
principle contained therein is reversed (we suppose “for this
occasion only”) in the case of Man. In this way he is enabled to
postulate a theory consoling to the Feminist soul, which affirms that
adult man is nearer in point of development to his pre-human
ancestor than either the child or the woman! The physiological and
psychological analogies observable between the child and the
savage, and even, especially in early childhood, between the child
and the lower mammalian types—analogies which, notably in the life
of instinct and passion, are traceable readily also in the human
female—all these count for nothing; they are not dreamt of in Mr
Ellis’s Feminist philosophy. The Modern Feminist dogma requires that
woman should be recognised as equal in every respect (except in
muscular strength) with man, and if possible, as rather superior to
him. If Nature has not worked on Feminist lines, as common
observation and scientific research alike testify on the face of things,
naughty Nature must be “corrected,” in theory, at least, by the
ingenuity of Feminist savants of the degraded male persuasion. To
this end we must square our scientific hypotheses!
The startling theory of Mr Havelock Ellis, which must seem, one
would think, to all impartial persons, so out of accord with all the
40. acknowledged laws and facts of biological science, appears to the
present writer, it must be confessed, the very reductio ad absurdum
of Feminist controversial perversity.
I will conclude this chapter on Feminist Lies and Fallacies with a
fallacy of false analogy or false illustration, according as we may
choose to term it. This quasi-argument was recently put forward in a
defence speech by one of the prisoners in a suffragette trial and was
subsequently repeated by George Bernard Shaw in a letter to The
Times. Put briefly, the point attempted to be made is as follows:—
Apostrophising men, it is said: “How would you like it if the historical
relations of the sexes were reversed, if the making and the
administrating of the laws and the whole power of the State were in
the hands of women? Would not you revolt in such a condition of
affairs?” Now to this quasi-argument the reply is sufficiently clear.
The moral intended to be conveyed in the hypothetical question put,
is that women have just as much right to object to men’s
domination, as men would have to object to women’s domination.
But it is plain that the point of the whole question resides in a petitio
principie—to wit, in the assumption that those challenged admit
equal intellectual capacity and equal moral stability as between the
average woman and the average man. Failing this assumption the
challenge becomes senseless and futile. If we ignore mental and
moral differences it is only a question of degree as to when we are
landed in obvious absurdity. In “Gulliver’s Travels” we have a picture
of society in which horses ruled the roost, and lorded it over human
beings. In this satire Swift in effect put the question: “How would
you humans like to be treated by horses as inferiors, just as horses
are treated by you to-day?” I am, be it remembered, not instituting
any comparison between the two cases, beyond pointing out that
the argument as an argument is intrinsically the same in both.
42. CHAPTER VII
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MOVEMENT
We have already spoken of two strains in Modern Feminism
which, although commonly found together, are nevertheless
intrinsically distinguishable. The first I have termed Sentimental
Feminism and the second Political Feminism. Sentimental Feminism
is in the main an extension and emotional elaboration of the old
notion of chivalry, a notion which in the period when it was
supposed to have been at its zenith, certainly played a very much
smaller part in human affairs than it does in its extended and
metamorphosed form in the present day. We have already analysed
in a former chapter the notion of chivalry. Taken in its most general
and barest form it represents the consideration for weakness which
is very apt to degenerate into a worship of mere weakness. La
faiblesse prime le droit is not necessarily nearer justice than la force
prime le droit; although to hear much of the talk in the present day
one would imagine that the inherent right of the weak to oppress
the strong were a first principle of eternal rectitude. But the theory
of chivalry is scarcely invoked in the present day save in the interests
of one particular form of weakness—viz. the woman as the
muscularly weaker sex, and here it has acquired an utterly different
character.[141:1]
[141:1] As regards this point it should be remarked that mediæval
chivalry tolerated (as Wharton expressed it in his “History of
Poetry”) “the grossest indecencies and obscenities between the
sexes,” such things as modern puritanism would stigmatise with
such words as “unchivalrous,” “unmanly” and the like. The
resemblance between the modern worship of women and the
relations of the mediæval knight to the female sex is very thin
indeed. Modern claims to immunity for women from the criminal
law and mediæval chivalry are quite different things.