Software engineering

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The new Airbus A-380 uses a substantial amount of software to create a "paperless" cockpit.

A typical software engineer's office.

Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches. That is the application of engineering to software. [1]

The term software engineering first appeared in the 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference and was meant to provoke thought regarding the current "software crisis" at the time.[2] Since then, it has continued as a profession and field of study dedicated to creating software that is of higher quality, cheaper, maintainable, and quicker to build. Since the field is still relatively young compared to its sister fields of engineering, there is still much work and debate around what software engineering actually is. It has grown organically out of the limitations of viewing software as just programming. Software development is a term sometimes preferred by practitioners in the industry who view software engineering as too heavy-handed and constrictive to the malleable process of creating software.

Yet, in spite of its youth as a profession, the field's future looks bright as Money Magazine and Salary.com rated software engineering as the best job in America in 2006. [3]