Developing safety critical software : a practical guide for aviation software and DO 178C compliance Preface Its with a great sense of responsibility and complete humility that I present this book. After two years of researching and writing I feel Ive only scratched the surface. I hope that what I share and have experienced will help you in your professional endeavors. My passion is safety and making its realization practical. As early as high school I wrote a column for the local newspaper on safety tips extensively researching (as much as one can in rural America before the Internet): bathtub safety tractor safety and electrical safety among others. My senior year of high school I competed in the state persuasive speech competition the subject was seatbelt safety. My desire to promote safety led me to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and is the primary motivation behind this book. Software is only one link in the overall safety chain. Yet it is an important link and one which grows more vital each year. As software becomes more prevalent and is used in more critical ways its risks and contributions to safety increase. At the same time that the risk due to software is increasing the business models of many companies seem to be shifting more is expected with less schedule becomes king and software engineers are treated like pieces on a game board that can be randomly reorganized. This book is intended to be a tool for those caught in the churn of the industry. Perhaps you are a systems engineer or manager a software manager a software engineer a quality assurance engineer or a student striving to learn from the experiences of others. You want to do an outstanding job but are overwhelmed with schedule and budget pressures. I hope that is this book based on the last 20 years of my life in the aviation industry