Guest Editors' Introduction: 2003 International Conference on Software Engineering.

The article reports on the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2003 held in Portland, Oregon. The article discusses three papers that were selected for representing the best of ICSE 2003. The first paper "Scaling Step Wise Refinement," by D. Batory, J.N. Sarvela and A. Rauschmayer, is about development of computer software. The second paper is "Fragment Class Analysis for Testing of Polymorphism in Java Software" by A. Rountev, A. Milanova and B.C. Ryder, and the third paper is "Modular Verification of Software Components in C," by S. Chaki, F. Clarke, A. Groce, S. Jha and H. Veith. These two papers concern validation of software. The article also names some persons who devoted their time and energy in organizing ICSE 2003. The author suggests that managing the complexity of modern software systems is a grand challenge. Throughout the conference, there were exhibits, posters and informal research demonstrations as well as an onsite newsletter describing memorable moments, humor and fascinating facts.