Software Engineering Process
INF4817 - Software Engineering, 400 Software Development
Software Engineering Process¶
In its early years, software development was terribly complex task that lacked conventions and structure and process. Similarities between design of software and conventional products (such as cars, bridges etc) were noticed. A transition started to begin towards a structured engineering approach to software development.
Fundamental to all engineering is logical, sequential thinking - identifying a problem, developing the specification which informs the design, leading to the implementation of the design into a full product. In traditional engineering, the previous step is generally completed before the next step is taken. This thinking has seeped into software development. Software engineering is a bit looser than conventional engineering in this regard. And new approaches are in continual development to adapt engineering principles to software engineering.
Software engineering has not met levels of predictability that classical engineering disciplines have achieved. It is not a mature engineering.