1.6 Major Topics in Software Engineering

Fig.1-2 and Fig.1-3 show the content of SWEBOK (software engineering body of Knowledge) [SWEBOK2004], which concerns 10 aspects: requirements, design, construction, testing, maintenance, configuration, management, process, quality, tools and methods. Fig.1-4 shows the relationships of topics in SWEBOK. These topics are considered very important from both academic and industry perspectives. In this book, these topics will be introduced in details and some other closely related topics will be presented as well.

Fig.1-2 content of SWEBOK (1)

Fig.1-3 content of SWEBOK (2)

Fig.1-4 relationships of topics in SWEBOK

A typical lifecycle example of software engineering is shown in Fig.1-5, starting from requirements analysis, specification of requirements can be formed, then specification of design, then construction, then deployment (results) and feedbacks and maintenance are needed. There may be quite a few iterations for the cycle before customer requirements are satisfied.

Fig.1-5 a typical lifecycle example of software engineering