Task 1:Importance of Software Engineering in Software Development.

Some decades back, when computer was just born and was completely new thing to people. Very few people could operate them and software was not given very much of emphasis. That time hardware was the most important part that decided the cost of implementation and success rate of the system developed. Very few people were known to programming. Computer programming was very much considered to be an art gifted to few rather than skill of logical thinking. This approach was full of risk and even in most of the cases, the system that was undertaken for development, never met the completion. Soon after that, some emphasis was given towards software development. This started a new era of software development. Slowly, people started giving more importance to software development.

People, who wrote softwares, hardly followed any methodology, approach or discipline that would lead to a successful implementation of a bug-free and fully functional system. There hardly existed any specific documentation, system design approach and related documents etc. These things were confined to only those who developed hardware systems. Software development plans and designs were confined to only concepts in mind.

Software engineering is defined as the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software; that is the application of engineering to software. The effort is necessitated by the potential complexity of those systems, which may contain millions of lines of code.

Software Engineering includes planning and developing strategies, defining time-lines and following guidelines in order to ensure the successful completion of particular phases, following predefined Software Development Life-Cycles, using documentation plans for follow-ups etc. in order to complete various phases of software development process and providing better support for the system developed.

Software Engineering takes an all-round approach to find out the customer’s needs and even it asks customers about their opinions hence proceeding towards development of a desired product. Various methodologies/practices such as ‘Waterfall Model’, ‘Spiral Model’ etc. are developed under Software Engineering which provides guidelines to follow during software development ensuring on time completion of the project. These approaches help in dividing the software development process into small tasks/phases such as requirement gathering and analysis, system design phase, coding phase etc. that makes it very much easy to manage the project.

These methods or approaches also help in understanding the problems faced (which occur during the system development process and even after the deployment of the system at customer’s site) and strategies to be followed to take care of all the problems and providing a strong support for the system developed (for example: the problems with one phase are resolved in the next phase, and after deployment of the product, problems related to the system such as queries, bug that was not yet detected etc. which is called support and maintenance of the system. These all strategies are decided while following the various methodologies).

Meanwhile software engeenering plays a big role in software development.Actually,software development is the set of activities that results in software products. Software development may include research, new development, modification, reuse, re-engineering, maintenance, or any other activities that result in software products.Especially the first phase in the software development process may involve many departments, including marketing, engineering, research and development and general management.The term software development may also refer to computer programming, the process of writing and maintaining the source code.

Today, almost 100% software development projects use Software Engineering concepts and follow the standard guidelines; this ensures a safe pathway for these projects. In future also, all the projects will surely follow the Software Engineering concepts (may be with improved strategies and methodologies.)