You will eventually have to deal with The Rational Unified Process (RUP) if you work on large software projects. In practice, RUP is a Web-based project management tool with a built in e-coach (a sophisticated help system) and much previous art. It emphasises obvious project management practices such as defining user needs, interactive development and testing, reusing working code components, inter-developer communications, change control, risk management and so on. Rational claim to add value by charging for it, couching it in arcane management speak and invoking UML. The tools it provides make it easier to implement good practice, but RUP is far from being a panacea and, to some developers, this introduction will seem patronising.

Managing large software projects, unlike civil engineering, remains more art than craft. Customers don't know what they want until they see what they've got. The structure often remains secret from the paying customer, the finished product always comes with faults, accurate costing is impossible and large software projects frequently fail more often than civil engineering projects. It's not surprising, then, that much of The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction is made up of somewhat uninformative statements, like "Workers have activities which define the work they perform", or "A metric is a measurable attribute of an entity". RUP is gaining mind share as a useful tool--and this is a low cost introduction--but don't expect it to turn software development into engineering. --Steve Patient