When we think about software what comes first thing in mind, that software helps us in many ways and makes our life easier. Since the inception software is booming and new software’s are coming to solve our many problems and till now software is successful in doing their work.
Software itself is a big industry and many other industries are getting affected in a positive way and much software are in the market which is making the business world more efficient and more capable of doing something very effectively. Name any sector or industry you will find the software for that and they are working effectively and giving the good result more than our expectations.
Software was coined long and after that terms came in the software industry and one of them is Software Engineering and we can say that software engineering took the software to the another level.
What is Software Engineering?
What is Software Engineering, this might be a very trick question however if we try to understand what is software engineering then it’s very easy, let’s take a look.
Software is a set of programs with instructions to complete the specific task again and again.
Engineering is process of design, build, and test something which has some purpose.
If we combine software and engineering then it’s a process of understanding the need and to design, build, testing of the software which will fulfill the need. Let’s take an example, if we need a software for the retail industry then the developer will understand our requirement and on the basis of that he will design the blueprint of the software and then start developing that software and once developed then testing of that software is the nest step and software will be delivered, so from understating the need till the delivery is the software engineering.
In the current ear software engineering is in demand as this satisfy the exact requirement of the business. In 1965 few companies started giving the service of software engineering and since then software engineering is getting evolved time to time. Software Engineering is typically used for large and complicated software but not for the small and easy one. Software Engineering is a process which covers many things which we will discuss later.
Steps in Software Engineering
Software is getting crucial day by day and making this crucial process easy software engineering is there, let’s take a look at the steps involve in software engineering
- · Analysis
This is a very first stage of software engineering; in this stage we do all kind of analysis reading the requirement to develop the software. Analysis of the requirement means understanding the problem and what all feature to be added in the software so that the know problem can be solved or the expected task must be complete effectively.
Analyzing the problem accurately is very important so that you can develop the best solution for that, unable to get the requirement effectively will leads to more cost on the budget and on every stage of the software engineering there will be some or the other problem will come.
- · Design
Once we understand the entire requirement than we have to start building the software for that will make the blue print and this blueprint will tell us what we have to do to solve the given problem and what the best way to solve it. Designing part is always very important as this will help in developing the software step by step and we are aware what we have to of exactly and there are less chances of error if we have an effective blueprint.
- · Development and Testing
This is one of the most important stages in software engineering and the most crucial as well. In this stage we have analysis of the need, blueprint and now e have to start working on the solution, all the information must be used effectively we that we can build the software solution accurately, this is a lengthy process or this process end when the clients is fully satisfied with all kind of functions and the features of the software solution.
Testing is again an important part when we developing the software we need to test the software tie to tie to solve any errors so that the final product must work properly and meet all the required expectations which we defined at the early stage of software engineering, the solution has to be very simple and effective.
- · Maintenance
Once the software is developed and delivered to the clients and its working as per the expectations then again an important stage come in the picture and that is maintenance. In this stage we if any issue appears in the software than the developer has to take care of that issue and have to make sure that issue doesn’t come again.
Maintenance stage also includes the time to time updating the software, sometime in includes add and remove some of the features, this process can be ongoing for the long term and many companies only focus on software maintenance only.
Conclusion
Software Engineering is a very important part of the software industry as it helps in taking care of the big software effectively, it also reduce the software cost. Software Engineering is a very reliable process as due to efficiency and safety and we know that if we follow all the stages of software engineering properly that the final product will be up to the expectations.
