Through its successful sessions since 2004, the LASER summer school (Laboratory for Applied Software Engineering Research), organized by ETH Zurich, brings together the concepts and practice of software engineering in the idyllic setting of the Elba Island off the coast of Tuscany, easily reachable by air, car, bus or train.

The LASER school is intended both for researchers (including PhD students) and for professional software engineers and managers who want to benefit from the best in software technology advances. The focus of LASER is resolutely practical, although theory is welcome to establish solid foundations. The format of the school favors extensive interaction between participants and speakers.

The 2006 LASER takes an in-depth look at Practical Programming Processes. Many approaches have been proposed in the past decade, from new advances in object technology to Patterns, Aspects, Extreme/Agile/Lean methods, incremental development, process standards (CMMI etc.), Open Source and several others. The school brings together six speakers:

 Ralph Back
 Miguel de Icaza
 Erik Meijer
 Bertrand Meyer
 Mary Poppendieck
 Andreas Zeller

with diverse backgrounds but each having made essential contributions to our understanding of the software development process. They will present and confront their approaches for the greatest advantage of anyone interested in better software construction.

Course Materials

Course structure, and a links to slide presentations are available here.

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