I'd say that his book Death March is also important and worth a read. A death march project doesn't have to be a corporate or government one that's too big, disorganized, compressed or underfunded to succeed. A death march can also be a startup that has a year of runway and 9 months of development needed even if everything goes right - because releasing your product the day you miss payroll still leaves you dead.
I read a lot of computer books after college, many of which Ed wrote, edited, or wrote the foreword for. As a fan of Code Complete and its book recommendations, I suggested that Ed add it to his own list of "cool books." He replied promptly and agreed.
Although I didn't read it from cover to cover, the chapters I read from a borrowed copy of Structured Design on coupling and cohesion had a big impact on me.
Worked at DeVry briefly on a gig way back when and Ed was on-board...brilliant R&D mind...Bell & Howell most definitely got their money's worth...
Had lunch with a few of us coders one day--he paid--and kept us all mesmerized by laying out paths we could take to keep our talents in play on a business level...turned out to be sound advice...
Considered him amazing...one of the most pleasant and "giving" men I've ever met
Ed Yourdon's early books with Peter Coad on object oriented analysis and design together with his book "Death March", had great influence on me and on my career. I'm saddened to hear of his death, but celebrate his life and his contribution to our field. My thoughts and best wishes to his family and those fortunate to have known him.
Ed was instrumental in helping my company look into potential Y2K vulnerabilities. It was Ed's book (Time Bomb 2000) that made me want to investigate Y2K in the first place, so I hired Ed as a consultant. Turned out there were no significant looming disasters, but there could have been some problems if we hadn't investigated and made corrections. Ed's advice was very useful, and he was a joy to work with. He will be missed.
Still have to finish reading his Just Enough System's Analysis book. Hope it's still relevant enough. His methods are still in use in some places. Tenix's EAL7 Data Diode used Yourdon Method in development.
At university I had to study one of his books, but I personally didn't like it at all - it did't click with me. The book was mainly about an iterative development system IIRC.
Still, RIP, apparantly a lot of people here liked his books.
I think knowledge of his work is for the most part split by generations.
Other influential people in computer science and software engineering have recently passed away, without any black bar. I think even a Turing Award is not enough to qualify. Some of their fundamental contributions to CS and SE reach back to the 60s and even the 50s.
For people who weren't writing software in the 70s, 80s or 90s -- how would they have known Ed and his work?
Some of us who were there at the time didn't appreciate his contributions, to be honest. Was there anything he was correct about in the long term?
(I'm not asking rhetorically, I'm genuinely curious. I read "Decline of the American Programmer" at the time it came out, thought it was total rubbish, and didn't bother to read anything else he wrote. Did I miss out?)
That was the first Yourdon book I read (still have the hard-cover around somewhere), and because of that it was the last. I had the same impression as you: "sky is falling" garbage, and time has vindicated those of us who thought so. I know of Yourdon and can understand the general appreciation of the man, but because the first impression was last, I just never pursued the rest of his writing. Petty of me, I know, but there's always been a stack of other CS-related books that needed reading.
As mkempe notes, it's probably a generational thing.
When I started studying software engineering in 1977 he was the most prominent figure in the books my city's college library had, I learned a lot back then from him and it's still generally relevant, although of course superseded as we figured out more things about the practice of software development ... or forgot rather a lot that had been learned back then.
