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.
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 Object-oriented programming Aspect-oriented programming Functional decomposition Structured programming Rule-based programming
Databases Hierarchical Object Relational SQL/XML SQL NoSQL
Graphical user interfaces GTK+ GIMP Toolkit wxWidgets Ultimate++ Qt toolkit FLTK
Programming tools Configuration management and source code management CVS Subversion Git Mercurial RCS GNU Arch LibreSource Synchronizer Team Foundation Server Visual Studio Team Services Build tools Make Rake Cabal Ant CADES Nant Maven Final Builder Gradle Team Foundation Server Visual Studio Team Services Visual Build Pro Editors Integrated development environments (IDEs) Text editors Word processors Parser creation tools Yacc/Bison Static code analysis tools
Libraries Component-based software engineering
Design languages Unified Modeling Language (UML)
Patterns, document many common programming and project management techniques Anti-patterns Patterns
Processes and methodologies Agile Agile software development Extreme programming Lean software development Rapid application development (RAD) Rational Unified Process Scrum 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. BREW Cray supercomputers DEC minicomputers IBM mainframes Linux PCs Classic Mac OS and macOS PCs Microsoft .NET Palm PDAs Sun Microsystems Solaris Windows PCs (Wintel) Symbian OS
Other Practices Communication Method engineering Pair programming Performance Engineering Programming productivity Refactoring Software inspections/Code reviews Software reuse Systems integration Teamwork
Other tools Decision tables Feature User stories Use cases
Computer science topics Algorithms, well-defined methods for solving specific problems. Searching Sorting Parsing Numerical analysis 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. Number representation Set (computer science) Bags Graphs Sequences Trees Graph (data structure) Logic Deduction First-order logic Higher-order logic Combinatory logic Induction Combinatorics
Other Domain knowledge Statistics Decision theory Type theory
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 Academia 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 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Six Sigma Total Quality Management (TQM)
Software engineering profession Software engineering demographics Software engineering economics CCSE History of software engineering Software engineering professionalism Ethics Licensing Legal Intellectual property Consumer protection
History of software engineering
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