Outline of software engineering

the following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to software engineering:

software engineering – application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software; that is the application of engineering to software.^[1]

the acm computing classification system is a poly-hierarchical ontology that organizes the topics of the field and can be used in semantic web applications and as a de facto standard classification system for the field. the major section "software and its engineering" provides an outline and ontology for software engineering.

software applications

software engineers build software (applications, operating systems, system software) that people use.

applications influence software engineering by pressuring developers to solve problems in new ways. for example, consumer software emphasizes low cost, medical software emphasizes high quality, and internet commerce software emphasizes rapid development.

business software
- accounting software
analytics
- data mining closely related to database
- decision support systems
airline reservations
banking
- automated teller machines
- cheque processing
- credit cards
commerce
- trade
- auctions (e.g. ebay)
- reverse auctions (procurement)
- bar code scanners
compilers
- parsers
- compiler optimization
- interpreters
- linkers
- loaders
communication
- e-mail
- instant messengers
- voip
- calendars — scheduling and coordinating
- contact managers
computer graphics
- animation
- special effects for video and film
- editing
- post-processing
cryptography
databases, support almost every field
embedded systems both software engineers and traditional engineers write software control systems for embedded products.
- automotive software
- avionics software
- heating ventilating and air conditioning (hvac) software
- medical device software
- telephony
- telemetry
engineering all traditional engineering branches use software extensively. engineers use spreadsheets, more than they ever used calculators. engineers use custom software tools to design, analyze, and simulate their own projects, like bridges and power lines. these projects resemble software in many respects, because the work exists as electronic documents and goes through analysis, design, implementation, and testing phases. software tools for engineers use the tenets of computer science; as well as the tenets of calculus, physics, and chemistry.
- computer aided design (cad)
- electronic design automation (eda)
- numerical analysis
- simulation
file
- ftp
- file sharing
- file synchronization
finance
- bond market
- futures market
- stock market
games
- poker
- multiuser dungeons
- video games
information systems, support almost every field
- lis management of laboratory data
- mis management of financial and personnel data
logistics
- supply chain management
manufacturing
- computer aided manufacturing (cam)
- distributed control systems (dcs)
music
- music sequencers
- sound effects
- music synthesis
network management
- network management system
- element management system
- operations support system
- business support systems
networks and internet
- domain name system
- protocols
- routers
office suites
- word processors
- spreadsheets
- presentations
operating systems
- embedded
- graphical
- multitasking
- real-time
robotics
signal processing, encoding and interpreting signals
- image processing, encoding and interpreting visual information
- speech processing
- text recognition
- handwriting recognition
simulation, supports almost every field.
- engineering, a software simulation can be cheaper to build and more flexible to change than a physical engineering model.
- sciences
sciences
- genomics
traffic control
- air traffic control
- ship traffic control
- road traffic control
training
- drill
- simulation
- testing
visualization, supports almost every field
- architecture
- engineering
- sciences
voting
world wide web
- browsers
- servers

software engineering topics

programming languages
ada	apl	b
cobol	pascal	c	c++
c#	clojure	common lisp	d
coldfusion	delphi	dylan	eiffel
erlang	fortran	f#	groovy
java	lasso	ml	ocaml
perl	php	pl/sql	prolog
go	rust	swift	javascript
haskell	python	ruby	scala
scheme	smalltalk	tcl	t-sql
verilog	vhdl	visual basic	visual basic .net
assembly language • • • scripting language • • • list of programming languages

programming paradigm, based on a programming language technology

databases

graphical user interfaces

patterns, document many common programming and project management techniques

processes and methodologies

agile
heavyweight
- cleanroom
- iso/iec 12207 — software life cycle processes
- iso 9000 and iso 9001
process models
- cmm and cmmi/scampi
- iso 15504 (spice)
metamodels
- iso/iec 24744
- spem

platforms

a platform combines computer hardware and an operating system. as platforms grow more powerful and less costly, applications and tools grow more widely available.

other practices

other tools

computer science topics

skilled software engineers know a lot of computer science including what is possible and impossible, and what is easy and hard for software.

algorithms, well-defined methods for solving specific problems.
compiler theory
- yacc/bison
data structures, well-defined methods for storing and retrieving data.
- lists
- trees
- hash tables
computability, some problems cannot be solved at all
- list of unsolved problems in computer science
- halting problem
complexity, some problems are solvable in principle, yet unsolvable in practice
- np completeness
- computational complexity theory
formal methods
- proof of correctness
- program synthesis
adaptive systems
- neural networks
- evolutionary algorithms

mathematics topics

discrete mathematics is a key foundation of software engineering.

other

life cycle phases

development life cycle phase
- requirements gathering / analysis
- software architecture
- computer programming
- testing, detects bugs
  - black box testing
  - white box testing
- quality assurance, ensures compliance with process.
product life cycle phase and project lifecycle
- inception
- first development
- major release
- minor release
- bug fix release
- maintenance
- obsolescence
release development stage, near the end of a release cycle
- alpha
- beta
- gold master
- 1.0; 2.0
software development lifecycle
- waterfall model — structured programming and stepwise refinement
- ssadm
- spiral model — iterative development
- v-model
- agile software development
- dsdm
- chaos model — chaos strategy

deliverables

deliverables must be developed for many se projects. software engineers rarely make all of these deliverables themselves. they usually cooperate with the writers, trainers, installers, marketers, technical support people, and others who make many of these deliverables.

application software — the software
database — schemas and data.
documentation, online and/or print, faq, readme, release notes, help, for each role
- user
- administrator
- manager
- buyer
administration and maintenance policy, what should be backed-up, checked, configured, ...
installers
migration
- upgrade from previous installations
- upgrade from competitor's installations
training materials, for each role
- user
- administrator
- manager
- buyer
support info for computer support groups.
marketing and sales materials
- white papers, explain the technologies used in the applications

business roles

operations
- users
- administrators
- managers
- buyers
development
- analysts
- programmers
- testers
- managers
business
- consulting — customization and installation of applications
- sales
- marketing
- legal — contracts, intellectual property rights
- privacy and privacy engineering
- support — helping customers use applications
- personnel — hiring and training qualified personnel
- finance — funding new development
academe
- educators
- researchers

management topics

leadership
- coaching
- communication
- listening
- motivation
- vision, ses are good at this
- example, everyone follows a good example best
human resource management
- hiring, getting people into an organization
- training
- evaluation
project management
- goal setting
- customer interaction (rethink)
- estimation
- risk management
- change management
process management
- software development processes
- metrics

business topics

quality programs

software engineering profession

history of software engineering

pioneers

many people made important contributions to se technologies, practices, or applications.

john backus: fortran, first optimizing compiler, bnf
victor basili: experience factory.
f.l. bauer: stack principle, popularized the term software engineering
kent beck: refactoring, extreme programming, pair programming, test-driven development.
tim berners-lee: world wide web
barry boehm: se economics, cocomo, spiral model.
grady booch: object-oriented design, uml.
fred brooks: managed system 360 and os 360. wrote the mythical man-month and no silver bullet.
larry constantine: structured design, coupling, cohesion
edsger dijkstra: wrote notes on structured programming, a discipline of programming and go to statement considered harmful, algorithms, formal methods, pedagogy.
michael fagan: software inspection.
tom gilb: software metrics, software inspection, evolutionary delivery ("evo").
adele goldstine: wrote the operators manual for the eniac, the first electronic digital computer, and trained some of the first human computers
lois haibt: fortran, wrote the first parser
margaret hamilton: coined the term "software engineering", developed universal systems language
mary jean harrold: regression testing, fault localization
grace hopper: the first compiler (mark 1), cobol, nanoseconds.
watts humphrey: capability maturity model, personal software process, fellow of the software engineering institute.
jean ichbiah: ada
michael a. jackson: jackson structured programming, jackson system development
bill joy: berkeley unix, vi, java.
alan kay: smalltalk
brian kernighan: c and unix.
donald knuth: wrote the art of computer programming, tex, algorithms, literate programming
nancy leveson: system safety
bertrand meyer: design by contract, eiffel programming language.
peter g. neumann: risks digest, acm sigsoft.
david parnas: module design, social responsibility, professionalism.
jef raskin: developed the original macintosh gui, authored the humane interface
dennis ritchie: c and unix.
winston w. royce: waterfall model.
mary shaw: software architecture.
richard stallman: founder of the free software foundation
linus torvalds: linux kernel, free software / open source development.
will tracz: reuse, acm software engineering notes.
gerald weinberg: wrote the psychology of computer programming.
elaine weyuker: software testing
jeannette wing: formal specifications.
ed yourdon: structured programming, wrote the decline and fall of the american programmer.

notable publications

about face: the essentials of user interface design by alan cooper, about user interface design. ISBN 0-7645-2641-3
the capability maturity model by watts humphrey. written for the software engineering institute, emphasizing management and process. (see managing the software process ISBN 0-201-18095-2)
the cathedral and the bazaar by eric raymond about open source development.
the decline and fall of the american programmer by ed yourdon predicts the end of software development in the u.s. ISBN 0-13-191958-x Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: invalid character
design patterns by erich gamma, richard helm, ralph johnson, and john vlissides. ISBN 0-201-63361-2
extreme programming explained by kent beck ISBN 0-321-27865-8
"go to statement considered harmful" by edsger dijkstra.
"internet, innovation and open source:actors in the network" — first monday article by ilkka tuomi (2000) source
the mythical man-month by fred brooks, about project management. ISBN 0-201-83595-9
object-oriented analysis and design by grady booch. ISBN 0-8053-5340-2
peopleware by tom demarco and tim lister. ISBN 0-932633-43-9
the pragmatic engineer versus the scientific designer by e. w. dijkstra [1]
principles of software engineering management by tom gilb about evolutionary processes. ISBN 0-201-19246-2
the psychology of computer programming by gerald weinberg. written as an independent consultant, partly about his years at ibm. ISBN 0-932633-42-0
refactoring: improving the design of existing code by martin fowler, kent beck, john brant, william opdyke, and don roberts. ISBN 0-201-48567-2
the pragmatic programmer: from journeyman to master by andrew hunt, and david thomas. ISBN 0-201-61622-x Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: invalid character
software engineering body of knowledge (swebok) iso/iec tr 19759

related fields

computer science
information engineering
information technology
traditional engineering
- computer engineering
- electrical engineering
software engineering
arts and sciences
application software
- information systems
programming
systems engineering