System Development

by Michael A. Jackson

Software development. Based on the work of M. A. Jackson and J. R. Cameron. Jackson system development (JSD) is a linear software development methodology developed by Michael A. Jackson and John Cameron in the 1980s. Jackson System Development (JSD) was first presented by Michael A. Jackson in 1982, in a paper called "A System Development Method" and in 1983 in "System Development". JSD is a method of system development that covers the software life cycle either directly or, by providing a framework into which more specialized techniques can fit.

418 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Professor Michael Anthony Jackson (born 1936) works as an independent computing consultant in London, England, and also as a part-time researcher at AT&T Research, Florham Park, NJ, U.S.. He is a visiting research professor at the Open University in the UK.

Jackson was educated at Harrow School where he was taught by Christopher Strachey and wrote his first program under Strachey's guidance. He then studied classics at Oxford University (known as "Greats"), where he was a fellow student with C. A. R. Hoare, two years ahead of him. They had a shared interest in logic, which was studied as part of Greats at Oxford.

In the 1970s, Jackson developed Jackson Structured Programming (JSP). In the 1980s, with John Cameron, he developed Jackson System Development (JSD). Then, in the 1990s, he developed the Problem Frames Approach. In collaboration with Pamela Zave, he created Distributed Feature Composition, a virtual architecture for specification and implementation of telecommunication services.