Textbook

Armando Fox and David Patterson, Engineering Software as a Service: An Agile Approach Using Cloud Computing, 2nd ed., 2020 — saasbook.info.

The book is free: saasbook.info has a free and legal PDF download, and Kindle and hardcopy editions are available for purchase. One chapter goes with each course module, and each module page links its own chapter.

New Online Textbook (Beta)

A new online edition of the book is being written for this course, and a beta is up now at e.saasbook.info. It is still a draft, so the per-chapter PDFs below remain the assigned reading — but the online edition is easier to read on a phone or tablet, and we would love your feedback on it.

Chapter PDFs

• Foreword
• Chapter 1: Introduction to Software as a Service, Agile Development, and Cloud Computing
• Chapter 2: How to Learn a New Language
• Chapter 3: SaaS Application Architecture: Microservices, APIs, and REST
• Chapter 4: SaaS Framework: Rails as a Model–View–Controller Framework
• Chapter 5: SaaS Framework: Advanced Programming Abstractions for SaaS
• Chapter 6: Mobile and Desktop SaaS Clients: JavaScript Introduction (Beta) — last updated 9/2/2026
• Chapter 7: Requirements: BDD and User Stories
• Chapter 8: Testing: Test-Driven Development
• Chapter 9: Software Maintenance: Enhancing Legacy Software Using Refactoring and Agile Methods
• Chapter 10: Agile Teams
• Chapter 11: Design Patterns for SaaS Apps
• Chapter 12: Dev/Ops
• Afterword

Chapters marked (Beta) are draft revisions that are still being edited; they may change during the semester, so check the “last updated” date before you print one.