Software Engineering: Introduction,

Motivation and its Significance

Shashank Gupta
BITS Pilani Assistant Professor
Pilani Campus
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
Exploratory Software Development

Style of New Developers.

Errors are resolved in several

random iterations.

2
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Exploratory Software Development

3
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Exploratory Software Development

4
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Reason for breakdown of
Exploratory S/W Development

Humans perform interpretation based

on Human Cognition Mechanism.
• Short Term Memory and Long Term Memory

Information stored in short term

memory get lost as the time evolves.

5
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Software Engineering Principles for
Handling Complexity

Abstraction
Decomposition

6
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Abstraction (also known as Model
Building)

Makes problem simpler by neglecting

needless information.

Much emphasis is only on one side of the

problem, however overlooking other sides.

7
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Multiple-Level Abstraction

Numerous abstractions of similar problem can

be generated.

Diverse categories of models facilitate in

understanding numerous aspects of the
problem.

8
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Abstraction Related to Complex
Problems

A single level of abstraction is

inadequate.

A chain of abstractions needs to be

designed.

9
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Example

10
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Decomposition

It decomposes a problem into numerous

small autonomous parts.

The small parts are solved separately in

some specified sequence.
• Small solutions get merged to generate the final
solution.
11
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Decomposition

Random decomposition of a problem

must be omitted.

The decomposed parts must be more

or less independent of each other.

12
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Motivation for Studying Software
Engineering

Controlling of exponential progress in

difficulty with size of the problem.

Systematic techniques based on

Abstraction and Decomposition.
• Small solutions get merged to generate the final
solution.
13
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Motivation for Studying Software
Engineering (Continued……)

Gain understanding of systematic techniques

• Requirements Specification
• Designing
• Development and Testing
• Project Management and Maintenance

For procuring the expertise to be an enhanced

programmer.

14
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Certain Terminologies: Jobs vs
Projects

• Iteratively executing some

Jobs well-defined tasks with the
certain outcome.

• Involves some challenge

Projects during the middle phase but
also has some fixed routines.

Software • Consists of some routine work

Development including some challenges
Projects with some uncertainity.
15
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
Traditional versus Modern Projects

Demand of Incremental Promotes

Increasing Delivery of Customer
Services Software Involvement

Significant Handle User

Re-use Feedback

16
BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus