Software Engineeringis the application of engineering to the development of software in a systematic method. It entails;

• "Research, design, develop,     and test operating systems-level software, compilers, and network     distribution software for medical, industrial, military, communications,     aerospace, business, scientific, and general computing applications."

• "The systematic application     of scientific and technological knowledge, methods, and experience to the     design, implementation, testing, and documentation of software".

Software engineering can be divided into 15 sub-disciplines. They are:

• Software requirements (or Requirements     engineering): The elicitation, analysis, specification, and validation of requirements     for software.

• Software design: The process of     defining the architecture, components, interfaces, and other     characteristics of a system or component. It is also defined as the result     of that process.

• Software construction: The     detailed creation of working, meaningful software through a combination of     coding, verification, unit testing, integration testing, and debugging.

• Software testing: An empirical,     technical investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information     about the quality of the product or service under test.

• Software maintenance: The totality     of activities required to provide cost-effective support to software.

• Software configuration management:     The identification of the configuration of a system at distinct points in     time for the purpose of systematically controlling changes to the     configuration, and maintaining the integrity and traceability of the     configuration throughout the system life cycle.

• Software engineering management:     The application of management activities—planning, coordinating,     measuring, monitoring, controlling, and reporting—to ensure that the     development and maintenance of software is systematic, disciplined, and     quantified.

• Software development process: The     definition, implementation, assessment, measurement, management, change,     and improvement of the software life cycle process itself.

• Software engineering models and     methods impose structure on software engineering with the goal of making     that activity systematic, repeatable, and ultimately more success-oriented

• Software quality

• Software engineering professional     practice is concerned with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that     software engineers must possess to practice software engineering in a     professional, responsible, and ethical manner

• Software engineering economics is     about making decisions related to software engineering in a business     context

• Computing foundations

• Mathematical foundations

• Engineering foundations