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What Does Software Engineering Do?
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Software engineering is the discipline of producing software to meet customer needs with the highest quality feasible given resource constraints. It is concerned with the ways in which people conduct their work activities and apply technology to produce and maintain software products and software-intensive systems. Issues of concern include specification, design, implementation,verification, validation, and evolution of software artifacts. Related topics include software metrics, project management, configuration management, quality assurance, peer reviews, risk management, and process improvement. Software engineering is essential for anyone working in development, maintenance, management, or related areas in a software organization.
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Software development currently suffers from 3 major deficiencies： (1) software engineering principles and practices, which should be the backbone of the software development life cycle are not fully accepted and followed by academia or industry； (2) straightforward, well established, and universally accepted design standards are lacking for the software development process and for representation of both process and product； and (3) the software development process is empirical in nature and not yet predicated on easily quantified and confirmed mathematical models. The effect of these and other deficiencies has been amplified by the rapid growth in the volume of software being produced and the almost exponential increase in the complexity of the problems now being solved with software. In spite of the need for a strongly structured approach to software's development, in many organizations software development is still basically a freestyle event.
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There may be other deficiencies in the software development process, the three that have been cited above are the root cause of many failed software developments. We cannot offer a"silver bullet", but we do, however, can offer the reader, interested in entering the software development field, a realistic preparation for the new software engineering environment.
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The overall objective of software engineering is to give the reader a sense of the flow of events in an integrated system and software development effort, and appreciation for and understanding of the software engineer's role in the system development process, and a comprehensive preparation for assuming responsibilities of a software engineer. We have also defined the following five fundamental objectives for the topic： (1) motivating readers with limited application experience by using realistic examples from recent experience and examining future directions for the discipline； (2) organizing and presenting material in such a way that the experienced practitioner will find it an accurate portrayal of the real world of software development； (3) developing a bridge from theory to practice in specific topics of interest to software engineers； (4) providing an algorithmic approach to each task or process carried out by a software engineer； and (5) providing a firm foundation upon which the reader can build.
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软件工程是在给定的资源条件下制作出满足用户需求的、可行的、高质量软件的学科。它是关于人们如何从事工作和利用技术来制作和维护软件产品和软件集成系统过程的方法。相关的议题包括：规格说明、设计、实现、测试、确认和软件产品的评价等。与上述论题相关的论题还有软件规格、项目管理、配置管理、质量保证、同行评价、风险管理以及过程完善。软件工程对从事开发、维护、管理或与软件机构相关领域的任何人而言都是极为重要的。
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软件开发目前有3个主要的不足：①作为软件开发生命周期支柱的软件工程原理和实践并没有被学术界或产业界普遍接受和遵循；②软件开发过程以及过程和产品的表达方式缺乏直接的、定义良好的和被普遍接受的设计标准；③软件开发过程本质上是经验主义的，还没有在容易量化和确认的数学模型上推断过。这些影响以及其他不足被软件产品的迅速增长和目前借助于软件求解问题的复杂性近乎指数式增长而扩大了。尽管软件开发需要一个强健的结构化方法，但在许多部门，软件开发基本上仍然是一个自由发挥的状况。
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软件开发过程中也许还有许多其他不足，但上述所讲的三个不足是软件开发失败的根本原因。我们不能提供一个"万全之策"，但我们确实能为对软件开发领域有兴趣的读者投入到新的软件工程环境中去提供一种实实在在的准备。
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软件工程的总体目标是使读者领悟一个集成系统和软件开发过程中的事件流程，体会并理解软件工程师在系统开发过程中的角色，为读者将来承担软件工程师的职责做好综合性的准备。我们还为该论题定义了如下5个基本目标：①通过最近做过的实际例子及仔细观察本学科未来的方向激发读者产生对自己有限经验进行应用的欲望；②用这样一种方法组织和表达资料的内容使有经验的专业人员感到它是真实的软件开发世界中的一种准确描述；③用软件工程师感兴趣的专门论题在理论与实践之间架起一座桥梁；④对软件工程师要完成的每项任务或过程都提供一个算法；⑤提供一个牢固的基础，并在此基础上发展。
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