Software Engineering: Challenges Mount, But so Do Rewards

Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Software engineering - ICSE '05, 2005

We discuss the technical skills that a software engineer should possess. We take the viewpoint of a school of engineering and put the software engineer's education in the wider context of engineering education. We stress both the common aspects that crosscut all engineering fields and the specific issues that pertain to software engineering. We believe that even in a continuously evolving field like software, education should provide strong and stable foundations based on mathematics and science, emphasize the engineering principles, and recognize the stable and longlasting design concepts. Even though the more mundane technological solutions cannot be ignored, the students should be equipped with skills that allow them to understand and dominate the evolution of technology.

ACM Sigsoft Software Engineering Notes, 1998

Software engineering is maturing as a discipline and a profession. This has major consequences for what might be expected in the education and practice of those who would call themselves "software engineers." We as a profession must pay more attention as to how we address the need for continuing education and certification of various grades of practitioner. Industry must work more closely with academia to help shape research and education agendas, and to prepare college graduates for careers in software engineering.

Software Quality Journal

The form, content, usefulness, and legitimacy of Software Engineering as a discipline continues to be debated. This paper first discusses the possibility that the term "software engineering" is an oxymoron and then discusses if instead software engineering is the future for the design and construction of software.

Journal of Systems and Software, 2005

We present the main lessons learned over the 16 years we have been running a graduate degree in software engineering at Monmouth University. It covers the challenges in delivering a program that meets the needs of industry and students in a highly dynamic field. The evolution of the curriculum induced by the domain's continuous advances and industry practice is presented. This evolution is an example of a transition from àcomputer science curriculum with an engineering flavor' towards a software engineering curriculum. The special meaning of continuous course content development in software engineering is argued through issues pertaining to dated textbooks and ever-changing programming languages, operating systems, and software tools. The paper also presents our experience of dealing with the diversity of the student body, and its influence on the curriculum and course content. The paper concludes with recommendations for constructing a similar program and ideas for future d...

IEEE Computer, 2022

The software crisis is still with us. In fact, it is worse than it has ever been, and we see evidence of the crisis regularly. All manner of applications from desktop systems to large-scale information systems are delivered late, exceed their projected budgets, and fail in various ways leading to inconvenience, loss of service, and loss of revenue. A recent study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that software errors cost the U. S. Economy about $59.5 billion annually [4].

[1991 Proceedings] 13th International Conference on Software Engineering, 1991