At Unviersidad ORT Uruguay, we use Sommerville and Pressman (http://amzn.to/12MBK6G). We have a weaker spot for Sommerville, but not by far. And certainly not based on any rational or academic motivation. We just happen to be used to it.

We buy every new eddition of Sommerville (Spanish and english), and 1 out of two eddition of Pressman. I have not heard students prefer one over the other.

Hope this helps

Santiago, I've never read Pressman's book but it does seem to get a pretty bad rating on the Amazon link you suggest. Sommerville's book's rating is better though not exceptional either. But then again neither does Pfleeger's book. Actually, Van Vliet seems to get the best rating of all the above on Amazon. Maybe I should take a closer look at Van Vliet's book after all. This being said, I am fully aware that ratings never show the full picture (an additional reason to take a closer look myself at those books).

I'll review Van Viel, we don't have it in our library.

I had not read the reviews at Amazon. I took a quick look at the lowest scores.

Seems they are formers students looking for something specific for their practice. They won't find it in none of those books.

Hi Kim,

Here at Eindhoven University of Technology, we currently use van Vliet's book in our third-year CS curriculum. In the past, Sommerville used to be the preferred recommended (though not required) text. Sommerville and Pressman are both rather encyclopaedic (hence, dry) in nature. Van Vliet has that to some extent, but less so. I have also taught from other books:

Timothy C. Lethbridge & Robert Laganière.

Object-Oriented Software Engineering: Practical Software Development using UML and Java (Second Edition).

McGraw-Hill, 2005;

which was more practically oriented (cf. the title); and before that

Carlo Ghezzi, Mehdi Jazayeri, Dino Mandrioli

Fundamentals of Software Engineering (2nd Edition)

Prentice Hall, 2002.

which was more theoretical (cf.: formal methods).

An important issue to consider is whether the course you will be teaching also needs to be applied on a real SE project at (about) the same time. In that case, you might want something that focuses more on the specifics of your project and its context (tools, etc.). The textbooks that you mention are all comprehensive, covering a lot of breadth, but they are not very helpful when it comes to running a real project, that involves all kinds of decisions that need to be made without getting bogged down in almost philosophical discussions.

Tom, good context addition. My references are for a SE course in the thrid semester of a 4 year bachelor programme

Hi Kim

I found "Applying UML and Patterns: An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and Iterative Development" by Craig Larman very useful to complement course material. As the title suggests, it is not an exhaustive SE introduction but quite the opposite of the more encyclopaedic style Tom mentioned. It's more like "SE by example."

I would like to recommend Roger S. Pressman's book, "Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach"

I will recommend "Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach" by Roger S. Pressman.

It is indeed crucial to think carefully what the book will be used for. If it is intended for a more theoretical and broad software engineering course, the criteria of choice will be different then if it is intended for a more practial oriented software development project. The level of the students is important too. In my case the audience will be first year Master students in a five year bachelor+master program, so this is their fourth year, after having finished their three years of bachelor.

Regarding the type of course in fact my question was a double one in the sense that we will have two courses. There will be a new Software Development project for which a more practical book may indeed be a better choice (I'll take a closer look at Larman's or Lethbridge's book for that course, thanks for the pointers, I'm sure we must have it in our library). And there will be a new Software Engineering course for which a more theoretical-oriented and broader book may be more appropriate.

Thank for the responses so far. They were quite helpful already.

Depending on type course, I would recommend Sommerville's book, but I would consider other complementary materials as SWEBOK, you can access for free in the web of IEEE Computer Society.

In Springer web site there is a book, but now I can't remember the authors...sorry.

Finally you can add some papers in specific issues from Boehm, Pohl, Bosch, Glass, Atlee, etc.

u can follow a book written by Rajib mall an indian author software engineering for basic knowledge.

Software Engineering 9 by Ian Sommerville is a very good start for the people who are from different dicipline and not considering to be a software engineer.

If you would be wondering, in the end I made my choice and decided to use "Software Engineering: Theory and Practice" by Shari Lawrence Pfleeger & Joanne M. Atlee, 4th edition, Pearson Education, 2010. It covers many topics and is an easy read. Thanks for all the tips and hints.

The book by Roger S. Pressman is a must have book for software engineering students and i would like to suggest to include this book also.

For software engineering The book of Roger pressman is suitable, especially he wrote another book about web engineering in 2008/2009, showing many aspects of this topic that is rarely written in spite of its importance and interest.

Nice Contribution Kim Mens

Rajib Mall, Fundamentals of software engineering. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd., 2018.

You have already got good suggestions - a bible is

The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-4 by Donald Knuth

In the meantime, I think that some students are not very lucky with that book

This link talk about:

The 10 Best Software Engineering Books in 2019

https://devconnected.com/the-10-best-software-engineering-books-in-2019/

Rajib Mall is good one