Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Software Engineering

Bachelor's
Language: EnglishStudies in English
Subject area: engineering and engineering trades
Qualification: BEng
Kind of studies: full-time studies
Bachelor of Engineering (BEng)
University website: www.ed.ac.uk
Engineering
Engineering is the creative application of science, mathematical methods, and empirical evidence to the innovation, design, construction, operation and maintenance of structures, machines, materials, devices, systems, processes, and organizations. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more specialized fields of engineering, each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of applied mathematics, applied science, and types of application. See glossary of engineering.
Software
Computer software, or simply software, is a part of a computer system that consists of data or computer instructions, in contrast to the physical hardware from which the system is built. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all information processed by computer systems, programs and data. Computer software includes computer programs, libraries and related non-executable data, such as online documentation or digital media. Computer hardware and software require each other and neither can be realistically used on its own.
Software Engineering
Software Engineering is the application of engineering to the development of software in a systematic method.
Software
You can't physically touch software. You can hold a floppy disk or CD-ROM in your hand, but the software itself is a ghost that can be moved from one object to another with little difficulty. In contrast, a road is a solid object that has a definite size and shape. You can touch the the material and walk the route...
Software is a codification of a huge set of behaviors: if this occurs, then that should happen, and so on. We can visualize individual behaviors, but we have great difficulty visualizing large numbers of sequential and alternative behaviors...
The same things that make it hard to visualize software make it hard to draw blueprints of that software. A road plan can show the exact location, elevation, and dimensions of any part of the structure. The map corresponds to the structure, but it's not the same as the structure. Software, on the other hand, is just a codification of the behaviors that the programmers and users want to take place. The map is the same as the structure... This means that software can only be described accurately at the level of individual instructions... A map or a blueprint for a piece of software must greatly simplify the representation in order to be comprehensible. But by doing so, it becomes inaccurate and ultimately incorrect. This is an important realization: any architecture, design, or diagram we create for software is essentially inadequate. If we represent every detail, then we're merely duplicating the software in another form, and we're wasting our time and effort.
George Stepanek (2005) Software Project Secrets: Why Software Projects Fail. p. 10-11
Software Engineering
The required techniques of effective reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as programming is done by people that don't master them, the software crisis will remain with us and will be considered an incurable disease. And you know what incurable diseases do: they invite the quacks and charlatans in, who in this case take the form of Software Engineering gurus.
Edsger W. Dijkstra (2000) EWD 1305: Answers to questions from students of Software Engineering
Software
Software is like sex; it's better when it's free.
Attributed to Linus Torvalds at 1996 FSF conference, cited in Doug Abbott (2006) Linux for Embedded And Real-time Applications. p. 1
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