Introduction

Software is an integral part of most of the systems. It is business-strategic because it enables organizations to provide products and services that differentiate them from their competitors. Many software professionals struggle to build high-quality software and deliver it on time and within budget.

To execute software projects successfully and build high-quality products, software professionals need to understand the unique characteristics of software and the approach used for building and maintaining software.

An Introduction to Software Engineering Course includes:

• Software and its Components
• Unique Characteristics of Software
• Software Engineering Layers

This course has been co-authored by internationally recognized consultant and authority on software engineering—Dr. Roger S. Pressman.

Course Benefits

This online software engineering course will enable you to:

• Identify the components of software.
• Describe the unique characteristics of software and differentiate them from those of hardware.
• Describe software engineering and its three layers—processes, methods, and tools.

You receive a certificate of completion after successfully completing this software engineering course.

Content Brief

With the growing importance of software today, it is essential that customers know what to expect from ‘software’ and software professionals know what they need to deliver. Based on various definitions of software, we can say that software consists of:

• Programs
• Data structures
• Documents

The software industry is relatively young. To understand how to build high-quality software products, it is important to understand the characteristics of software in comparison to hardware, so that we can suitably draw from the body of knowledge available for hardware. Although both are technological products, software products differ from hardware products because software is a logical element while hardware is a physical element. Some unique characteristics of software that differentiate it from hardware are:

• Software is developed and engineered, not manufactured.
• The use of components in software for the purpose of software reuse is not yet common.
• Software deteriorates because of the errors made while changing it, and not due to wear and tear.

Building any technological product requires an engineering approach that is disciplined yet adaptable. Software engineering is a collection of practices relevant for building software. It can be seen as a set of three layers based on the quality approach of an organization.

• The process layer
• The methods layer
• The tools layer