software engineering

English

Etymology

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

software engineering (uncountable)

  1. The subfield of engineering concerned with applying a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.

Translations

References
  1. “Products and Services”, in Computers and Automation, June 1965, page 44
  2. “software engineering, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
  3. Oettinger, A. G. (August 1966), “President's Letter to the ACM Membership”, in Communications of the ACM, volume 9, issue 8, →DOI, page 546

Further reading
  • Pierre Bourque and Robert Dupuis, editors (February 6, 2004) Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge - 2004 Version‎, →ISBN
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