List of software engineering topics

This list complements the software engineering article, giving more details and examples.

For an alphabetical listing of topics, please see List of software engineering topics (alphabetical).

Influence on society

Software engineers affect society by creating applications. These applications produce value for users, and sometimes produce disasters.

Applications

Software engineers build software (applications, operating systems, system software) that people use.

Applications influence software engineering by pressuring developers to solve problems in new ways. For example, consumer software emphasizes low cost, medical software emphasizes high quality, and Internet commerce software emphasizes rapid development.

Business software

Analytics

Data mining closely related to database
Decision support systems

Airline reservations
Banking

Commerce

Compilers

Communication

E-mail
Instant messengers
VOIP
Calendars — scheduling and coordinating
Contact managers

Computer graphics

Animation
Special effects for video and film
Editing
Post-processing

Cryptography
Databases, support almost every field
Embedded systems Both software engineers and traditional engineers write software control systems for embedded products.

Engineering All traditional engineering branches use software extensively. Engineers use spreadsheets, more than they ever used calculators. Engineers use custom software tools to design, analyze, and simulate their own projects, like bridges and power lines. These projects resemble software in many respects, because the work exists as electronic documents and goes through analysis, design, implementation, and testing phases. Software tools for engineers use the tenets of computer science; as well as the tenets of calculus, physics, and chemistry.

File

Finance

Games

Information systems, support almost every field

LIS Management of laboratory data
MIS Management of financial and personnel data

Logistics

Supply chain management

Manufacturing

Music

Network Management

Networks and Internet

Office suites

Operating systems

Robotics
Signal processing, encoding and interpreting signals

Image processing, encoding and interpreting visual information
Speech processing
Text recognition
Handwriting recognition

Simulation, supports almost every field.

Engineering, A software simulation can be cheaper to build and more flexible to change than a physical engineering model.
Sciences

Sciences

Genomics

Traffic Control

Training

Drill
Simulation
Testing

Visualization, supports almost every field

Voting
World wide web

Disasters

Software has played a role in many high-profile disasters.

Ariane 5 Flight 501
Mars probe
Denver International Airport
TAURUS — UK share settlement system and dematerialised central share depository.
Therac-25 — A radiation therapy machine responsible for six overdoses due to faulty software.
Airbus A320 — The Airbus A320, while was controversial in software engineering circles, being the first civilian Fly-by-wire aircraft. In the Airbus flight control systems, the computer has the final say on all decisions, meaning the safety of passengers depends upon the accuracy of the software specification, and the competence of the engineering teams producing the (multiple, independent) software stacks. The Strasbourg A320 crash of Jan 21, 1992 is partially related to software in that poor user interface design was a contributing factor.
Failure at Dharan — Patriot Missile clock issue.

Technologies and practices

Skilled software engineers use technologies and practices from a variety of fields to improve their productivity in creating software and to improve the quality of the delivered product.

Software engineering topics

Many technologies and practices are (mostly) confined to software engineering, though many of these are shared with computer science.

Programming languages

Programming paradigm, based on a programming language technology

Databases

Graphical user interfaces

Patterns, document many common programming and project management techniques

Processes and methodologies

Agile

Heavyweight

Cleanroom
ISO 12207 — software life cycle processes
ISO 9000 and ISO 9001
Rational Unified Process

Process Models

CMM and CMMI/SCAMPI
ISO 15504 (SPICE)

Platforms

A platform combines computer hardware and an operating system. As platforms grow more powerful and less costly, applications and tools grow more widely available.

BREW
Cray supercomputers
DEC minicomputers
IBM mainframes
Linux PCs
Mac OS and Mac OS X PCs
Microsoft .NET network software platform
Palm PDAs
Sun Microsystems Solaris
Windows PCs (Wintel)
Symbian OS

Other Practices

Other tools

Computer science topics

Skilled software engineers know a lot of computer science including what is possible and impossible, and what is easy and hard for software.

Algorithms, well-defined methods for solving specific problems.

Compiler theory

Yacc/Bison

Data structures, well-defined methods for storing and retrieving data.

Computability, some problems cannot be solved at all

Halting problem

Complexity, some problems are solvable in principle, yet unsolvable in practice

Formal methods

Adaptive Systems

Mathematics topics

Discrete mathematics is a key foundation of software engineering.

Logic

Induction
Combinatorics

Other

Life cycle phases

Development life cycle phase

Quality assurance, ensures compliance with process.

Product Life cycle phase and Project lifecycle

Release development stage, near the end of a release cycle

Software development lifecycle

Waterfall model — Structured programming and Stepwise refinement
SSADM
Spiral model — Iterative development
V-model
Agile software development
DSDM
Chaos model — Chaos strategy

Deliverables

Deliverables must be developed for many SE projects. Software engineers rarely make all of these deliverables themselves. They usually cooperate with the writers, trainers, installers, marketers, technical support people, and others who make many of these deliverables.