Software engineering is the field that deals with the creation and commissioning of new software. “So these are just developers?” – you ask. In fact, you will be right, only software product development involves a more serious approach than just product development. A professional who practices software engineering is called a software engineer.
A software engineer intelligently thinks through the entire path of creating a software product. He begins research long before the creation of the product itself. He has a clearly defined plan of what to do and when and when to be ready. He “sees” what the product will be like in 5 or 10 years.
So it turns out that software engineering is inherent in large software companies. They think through everything in advance, plan and know how to achieve the result. A software engineer is “higher” than a simple developer. Anyone can get into developers, but you have to work hard to get into software engineering.
Main stages of software development
The software development process covers the design, documentation, programming, testing, and ongoing maintenance of a software product. These components form a workflow pipeline, a series of steps that create high-quality software products. Such a pipeline is called the software development life cycle.
Despite the many nuances, the software development life cycle usually consists of the following typical stages.
- Pre-project analysis of the Customer’s business processes. Development of technical documentation
- Step-by-step development of a software product
- Testing (functional, load, usability testing)
- Commissioning and integration with the Customer’s environment. User training
- Technical support and maintenance
The complexity of software development
Like other traditional engineering disciplines, software development deals with issues of quality, cost, and reliability. Some programs contain millions of lines of source code that are expected to execute correctly under changing conditions. The complexity of software is comparable to that of the most complex modern machines, such as airplanes.
Support, operation, and maintenance
Active software development projects require support and maintenance. There are powerful tools for logging, prioritizing, and resolving customer support requests.
Safety
Traditionally, the security phase has been at the end of the software release cycle. However, as the scale and complexity of software applications increase, this becomes insufficient. Now, in order to minimize vulnerabilities in the program code, security must be maintained throughout the entire software development cycle.
