Software engineering is a discipline concerned with almost all the aspect of software development and production. It Started From The system specification and finished upon the deployment of software.
In this simple definition there are two key phrases can be differentiate.
Engineering discipline:
It is about to to apply theories and to make things happen. In simple word we can say that to Expo different approaches to make efficient solutions and to implement already existing approaches. In the discipline of software will consider approaches as agile methodology, and different software development models. Remember that in the engineering discipline financial and time constraint matters a lot.
Aspect of software development:
Software engineering is not about the theory of only its cover all the aspect of Software Solution. Majorly its focus upon the management of software and its documentation. It also conclude the methodologies which support the development of Ideal solution.
Mostly software engineers like to adopt organised and systematic approach to implement the Win-Win situation. By this they can develop high quality product. However engineering deal with the most appropriate approach according to the circumstances, requirement, financial situation and delivery time.
In the field of freelancing software engineers used in formal approaches to implement the solution which are mostly like of web systems. But in the commercial they have to follow the formal approaches to implement the high quality product for enterprises.
Informal approaches required graphical and designing skills where the formal approach is required solid understanding of programming and reusable code.
Software Evolution
After getting the understanding of software engineering now move on to it’s development life cycle which is known as software evolution. Any iterative approach like “Spiral” or “Incremental” when complete it’s cycle, that’s called an evolution. In which a small patch of software is released.
In simple words, you want to develop “School Management System”, first you will create the Login or Signup form. Login form is developed in one evolution and Signup is developed in next evolution.
Software Evolution Life Cycle
Change Request
It’s comes from the client, i.e in the first client said he needs 4 fields in Login form, now he needs 3 fields. So this is a change request.
Impact Analysis
Software engineer will do it’s functional and non functional impact analysis. i.e when we have 4 fields is there any point of software which will get disturb if we remove any one field. And if it get disturbed then what will be the impact on the whole system. In short software engineers have to analysis for future blockers which can harm reputation of software.
Release Planning
After complete analysis software engineers have to plan the development and to count the time which is required to implement the change request according to the impact analysis. In this way client get the ultimate timeline of their requested changes.
System Update
In this phase software engineers have to implement the changes and update to date the system. Also the quality assurance is done on this phase.
System Release
After the completion of software update now it’s the phase where software engineers have to release the build, patch or new version of software block.
Basically a software evolution life cycle is started from the requirement gathering. Once all the requirements are collected the software engineers are intended to develop basic prototype for client satisfaction.
Provide feedback in the early stages of software development upon the prototype. According to this feedback software engineers iteratively update this prototype. This process go on until the desired software is developed.
For further understanding of Software Engineering I think these FAQs About Software Engineering will help you.