Commercial Software Development and its relationship
to academic computer science

Academic computer science, that which is researched and
taught in Universities, deals with programming basics,
data structures, theory of computation, and so on.
Commercial software development, on the other hand,
concentrates entirely on different issues such pas
project management, quality control, release planning,
and the like. This talk presents the process of
commercial software development and draws conclusions
regarding how the Universities both succeed and fail
with respect to it in preparing their students and in
conducting research. Where Universities fall short,
the results are increased costs and degraded software
quality across the industry.


Dr. David Penny received his Ph.D. from the University
of Toronto, Department of Computer Science, specializing
in the Software Engineering area. Concurrent with finishing
his Ph.D., he served for two years on the Faculty of Arts
and Science as a Lecturer. Dr. Penny then went on to work
for IBM in the design and implementation of C++ programming
environments. In 1994, Dr. Penny joined Algorithmics 
Incorporated as a manager of the software development group.
In that capacity, he helped further the design, implementation,
and productization of Algorithmics' flagship RiskWatch product.
Since that time, he has been engaged in building products
and helping Algorithmics clients implement these products,
and has been instrumental in the rapid growth of Algorithmics
as the premier vendor of Enterprise Risk Management software.
Dr. Penny currently holds the position of Vice President in
charge of Software Development and is a member of the Executive
Management Committee at Algorithmics.