R. Karve, Tom McBride, Ashley McNeille, Winifred Menezes, Barry Myburgh, Gunnar Overgaard, Bob Palank, June Park, Cecile Peraire, Ed Seidewitz, Ed Seymour, Ian Spence, Roly Stimson, Michael Striewe.
• For organizing SEMAT Chapters around the world: Doo-Hwan Bae, Steve Chen, Zhong Chen, Barry Dwolatsky, Gorkem Giray, Washizaki Hironori, Debasish Jana, Carlos Mario Zapata Jaramillo, Pinakpani Pal, Boris Pozin.
• For co-chairing the “Software Engineering Essentialized” project with Ivar Jacobson: Pekka Abrahamsson. This project develops training material, quizzes, exercises, certification, games, essentialized practices, etc. to support teachers giving classes based on this book.
From the outset of the writing of this book, the authors were aware of the fundamental change they proposed to the education in software engineering. Therefore, they wanted the book to be meticulously reviewed before publication. The book has been reviewed in 5 phases, each being presented as a draft. About 1000 comments have been given by more than 25 reviewers and each comment has been discussed and acted upon. We are very grateful for the help we received from the following people (alphabetically ordered) in making this a book we are very proud of: Giuseppe Calavaro, A. Chamundeswari, Görkem Giray, Emanuel Grant, Debasish Jana, Eréndira Miriam Jiménez Hernandez, Reyes Juárez-Ramírez, Winifred Menezes, Marcello Missiroli, Barry Myburgh, Anh Nguyen Duc, Hanna Oktaba, Don O’Neill, Gunnar Overgaard, Pinakpani Pal, Cecile Peraire, Boris Pozin, Antony Henao Roqueme, Anthony Ruocco, Vladimir Savic, Armando Augusto Cabrera Silva, Kotrappa Sirbi, Nebojsa Trninic, Hoang Truong Anh, Eray Tüzün, Murat Paşa Uysal, Ervin Varga, Monica K. Villavicencio Cabezas, Bernd G. Wenzel, Carlos Mario Zapata Jaramillo.
As you can see from these acknowledgments, many people have contributed to where we are today with Essence and its usage. Some people have made seminal technical contributions without which we wouldn’t have been able to create a kernel for software engineering. Some other people have contributed significant time and effort to move these technical contributions into a high-quality standard to be widely adopted. Some people have been instrumental in identifying the vision and leading the work through all the pitfalls that an endeavor can encounter when it is as huge as the SEMAT in fact is. Finally, some people have made huge efforts and with high passion marketed the work and the result to break through the barriers that fundamentally new ideas always face. We have not made an effort to rank all these contributions here, but we hope all these individuals are assured that we know about them and we are tremendously grateful for all they have done.
We would also like to thank the team at Windfall Software for carefully copy editing and preparing the content of this book. We are especially grateful to their professional developmental editor, who was instrumental in this endeavor and put in a huge effort to achieve this high-quality result.
1. Essence has been likened to the DNA of software engineering or the periodic table in chemistry.
2. Throughout this book, except for the cases where the term project is more appropriate for historical reasons, we use the term endeavor. This is because not all software development occurs within the context of a formal project.
PART I
THE ESSENCE OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
We live at an exciting time in the history of computer and network technologies where software has become a dominant aspect of our everyday life. Wherever you look and wherever you turn, software is there. It is in almost everything you use and affects most everything you do. Software is in many things such as microwaves, ATMs, smart TVs, machines running vehicles, and factories, as well as being utilized in all types of organizations.
Although software provides many opportunities for improving many aspects of our society, it presents many challenges as well. One of them is development, deployment, and sustainment of high-quality software on a broad scale. Another is the challenge of utilizing technology advancements in new domains, for instance, intelligent homes and Smarter Cities. Here, the evolution of the mobile internet, apps, the internet of things (IoT), and the availability of big data and cloud computing, as well as the application of artificial intelligence and deep learning, are some of the latest “game-changers” with more still to come.
This book provides you with fundamental knowledge you will need for addressing the challenges faced in this era of rapid technology change. Part I will introduce you to software engineering through the lens of a kernel of fundamental concepts that have been provided by the Object Management Group’s standard called Essence 1. Essence is rapidly becoming a “lingua franca” for software engineering. The authors are convinced that this approach will provide a perspective that will be a lasting contribution to your knowledge base and prepare you to participate in teams that can develop and sustain high-quality software.
1
From Programming to Software Engineering
This chapter sets the scene with respect to the relationship between programming und software engineeering. The important issue is that software engineering is much more than just programming. Of course, the running system created by an act of programming is an essential and rewarding ingredient of what the right system will become, and it is important that the reader is actually able to use and apply a programming language to create a program, at least a small one. But is it by no means everything. Thus, this chapter
• introduces the notion of software development and that it is more than just putting a program together;
• shows what additionally is needed beyond programming, i.e., shows the differences between programming, software development, and software engineering;
• shows the motivations for the discipline of software engineering;
• introduces some important elements of software engineering that actually show the differences between software engineering and programming, and shows how they relate to each other.
What is fascinating about this aspect of software development is that it is more than just programming. Rather, it is to learn the whole picture and as a software engineer to solve a problem or exploit an opportunity that the users may have.
As a new student, understanding what software engineering is about is not easy, because there is no way we can bring its realities and complexities into the student’s world. Nevertheless, it is a student’s responsibility to embark on this journey of learning and discovery into the world of software engineering.
Throughout this entire book, we will trace the journey of a young chap, named Smith, from his days in school learning about programming through to becoming a software engineering professional and continuing his on-going learning process in this ever-changing and growing field. In a way, we are compressing time into the pages of this book. If you are a new student, you are considered to be the primary audience for this book. Smith will be your guide to the software engineering profession, to help you understand what software engineering is about. If you are already a software engineer by profession, or you teach and coach software engineering, you can reflect on your own personal journey in this exciting profession. As an experienced developer you will observe an exicting and fundamentally new way to understand and practice software engineering. Regardless of your current personal level of experience, through Smith’s experiences we will distill the essence of software engineering.
Sidebar 1.1 Programming
Programming is used here as a synonym for implementation and coding. From Wikipedia we quote: “Related
