Editing Steve McConnell (section)

== Career ==
McConnell graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy,  minoring in computer science,<ref>{{cite book | author1=Steve McConnell | author2=Scott Berkun | author2-link=Scott Berkun | chapter=Better Practices: An Interview with Steve McConnell |editor1=Andrew Stellman |editor2=Jennifer Greene | title=Beautiful Teams: Inspiring and Cautionary Tales from Veteran Team Leaders | year=2009 | publisher=[[O'Reilly Media]] | page=205 | isbn=978-0596804923 | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sQpIAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA205 | access-date=2015-04-13}}</ref> at [[Whitman College]] in [[Walla Walla, Washington]], and a master's degree in [[software engineering]] from [[Seattle University]]. He then pursued a career in the desktop software industry, working at [[Microsoft]], [[Boeing]], the [[Russell Investment Group]] and several other Seattle area firms. At Microsoft, McConnell worked on [[TrueType]] as part of [[Windows 3.1]]. At Boeing, he worked on a [[Strategic Defense Initiative]] project.

McConnell published his first book, ''[[Code Complete]]'', in 1993.

From 1996 to 1998, he was the editor of the "Best Practices" column in the [[IEEE Software]] magazine. From 1998 to 2002, he served as the [[editor-in-chief]] of the magazine.<ref>{{Cite journal | author=Warren Harrison | title=Our 20th Anniversary | year=2003 | journal=IEEE Software | volume=20 | number=6|pages=5–7 | doi=10.1109/MS.2003.10026 }}</ref>

''The New York Times'' has quoted McConnell stating that there are "15 to 50 defects per 1,000 lines of code in delivered software" on average.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/09/technology/software-as-weaponry-in-a-computer-connected-world.html|title=Software as Weaponry in a Computer-Connected World|newspaper=The New York Times|date=7 June 2016|last1=Perlroth|first1=Nicole}}</ref>