Software Engineering — important terminology
There is a software and systems vocabulary website called SEVOCAB. Check it out to see the professional definitions. Here are some of the important terminology (in no particular order) learned in a software engineering class:
Three S’s — Software, Systems, Service
Three P’s — Product, Process, People
Three C’s — Competence, Commitment, Coordination (people)
Process — set of interrelated or interacting activities which transforms inputs into outputs, uses resources to do it
Software Process Model — determine the order of the stages involved in software development and evolution and to establish the transition criteria for progressing from one stage to the next
Plan-driven development
- document-driven, code- driven, traditional
- emphasis on defining the scope, schedule, and costs of the project upfront
- extensive documentation (of product requirements)
- no iteration
Change-driven development
- enabling the evolution of product requirements during the development
- iterative and incremental
Iterative development
- lifecycle model in which the software is built in iterations
- each iteration = a mini-project
- requirements analysis, design, implementation and testing are conducted in order to produce a subset of the final system
- often resulting in internal iteration release (IIR)
Incremental development -
- adding functionality to a system over several releases
- one incremental delivery may be composed of several iterations
IID — Iterative and Incremental Development
- the software is built in iterations
- functionality is added to the system over several releases
PM — Project Management, establish and carry out in a systematic way the tasks of the software implementation project, which allows complying with the project’s objectives in the expected quality, time and cost
SI — Software Implementation — the systematic performance of the analysis, software component identification, construction, integration and tests, and product delivery activities for new or modified software products according to the specified requirements
SOW Statement of Work — document in project planning; includes activities, deliverables, timelines, pricing, regulations etc
ISO Standards — International Organization for Standardization, World’s largest standards development and publication organization
CISQ — Consortium for IT Software Quality, is an IT industry leadership group that develops international standards for automating the measurement of software size and software structural quality from system source code
SWEBOK -software engineering Body of Knowledge, international standard
SWEBOK Guide — Guide to the use of SWEBOK V3 (IEEE) has the following 15 knowledge areas (KAs) within the field of software engineering:
- Software requirements
- Software design
- Software construction
- Software testing
- Software maintenance
- Software configuration management SCM
- Software engineering management
- Software engineering process
- Software engineering models and methods
- Software quality
- Software engineering professional practice
- Software engineering economics
- Computing foundations
- Mathematical foundations
- Engineering foundations
SEVOCAB — Software & System Engineering Vocabulary, Internationally standard definitions by IEEE Computer Society and ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) / IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission)
IEEE Computer Society — The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, is a professional association. Its objectives are the educational and technical advancement of electrical and electronic engineering, telecommunications, computer engineering and allied disciplines.
SQuaRE — Systems and Software Quality Requirements and Evaluation
VSE — Very Small Entities, under 26 people
Software Product — the goal of software engineering, used by specific users meets their needs to achieve specific goals with effectiveness, productivity, safety and satisfaction in specific contexts of use
Intermediate software product — product of the software development process that is used as input to another stage of the software development process
CoSQ — Cost of Software Quality, a set of measurements derived from the economic assessment of software quality development and maintenance processes
System — an interacting combination of elements to accomplish a defined objective. These include hardware, software, firmware, people, information, techniques, facilities, services, and other support elements
Stakeholder — those persons or parties who have a stated or implied interest in the software
Life Cycle Models — the framework of processes and activities concerned with the life cycle that can be organized into stages. Provides a reference model characterized in terms of the process purpose and the process outcomes that result from their successful implementation. Processes have:
- Title
- Purpose
- Outcomes
- Activities
- does not detail methods or procedures
Lifelong Learning — ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons
