software engineering
English edit
Etymology edit
First attested in 1965 in service listings (in “systems software engineering”),[1] partly popularized by American computer scientists Anthony Oettinger and Margaret Hamilton later in the decade. In a 1966 letter to the members of the Association for Computing Machinery, listed by the Oxford English Dictionary as the term’s first attestation,[2] Oettinger wrote, “We must recognize ourselves […] as members of an engineering profession, be it hardware engineering or software engineering […]”.[3]
Noun edit
software engineering (uncountable)
- The subfield of engineering concerned with applying a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.
Related terms edit
Translations edit
subfield of engineering concerned with the development, operation, and maintenance of software
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References edit
- ^ “Products and Services”, in Computers and Automation, June 1965, page 44
- ^ “software engineering, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
- ^ Oettinger, A. G. (August 1966), “President's Letter to the ACM Membership”, in Communications of the ACM, volume 9, issue 8, , page 546
