Software engineering

Software engineering is the establishment and use of sound engineering principles in order to obtain economically software that is reliable and works efficiently on real machines.

— Software engineering

Software engineering is the part of computer science which is too difficult for the computer scientist.

— Software engineering

[Software engineering is the] establishment and use of sound engineering principles to obtain economically software that is reliable and works on real machines efficiently.

— Software engineering

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

— Software engineering

Software Engineering Economics is an invaluable guide to determining software costs, applying the fundamental concepts of microeconomics to software engineering, and utilizing economic analysis in software engineering decision making.

— Software engineering

Software engineering is an engineering discipline that is concerned with all aspects of software production from the early stages of system specification to maintaining the system after it has gone into use. In this definition, there are two key phrases:

— Software engineering

Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.

— Software engineering

Applications programming is a race between software engineers, who strive to produce idiot-proof programs, and the universe which strives to produce bigger idiots. So far the Universe is winning.

— Software engineering

[Software engineering is] the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.

— Software engineering

As more and more good ideas come under the protection of patents, it may become increasingly unlikely that any one program can incorporate the state of the art in user-interface design without sinking into a quagmire of unending royalty payments and legal battles.

— Software engineering

The business of software building isn't really high-tech at all. It's most of all a business of talking to each other and writing things down. Those who were making major contributions to the field were more likely to be its best communicators than its best technicians.

— Software engineering

The required techniques of effective reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as programming is done by people that don't master them, the software crisis will remain with us and will be considered an incurable disease. And you know what incurable diseases do: they invite the quacks and charlatans in, who in this case take the form of Software Engineering gurus.

— Software engineering

In all engineering disciplines nowadays, software engineering excluded, there exists an established engineering process to develop a system, which is accompanied by a number of suited modeling description techniques. Software engineering, being a rather new field, has not as yet established any clear methodical guidance or a fully standardized modeling notation.

— Software engineering

Some people have called the book [The Mythical Man-Month, 1975] the "bible of software engineering". I would agree with that in one respect: that is, everybody quotes it, some people read it, and a few people go by it.

— Software engineering

The amateur software engineer is always in search of magic, some sensational method or tool whose application promises to render software development trivial. It is the mark of the professional software engineer to know that no such panacea exist.

— Software engineering

You are absolutely deluded, if not stupid, if you think that a worldwide collection of software engineers who can't write operating systems or applications without security holes, can then turn around and suddenly write virtualization layers without security holes.

— Software engineering

Software engineering concerns methods and techniques to develop large software systems. The engineering metaphor is used to emphasize a systematic approach to develop systems that satisfy organizational requirements and constraints.

— Software engineering

Far too often, "software engineering" is neither engineering nor about software.

— Software engineering

After forty years of currency the phrase "software engineering" still denotes no more then a vague and largely unfulfilled aspiration.

— Software engineering