Background
Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the design, development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches; that is, the application of engineering to software.
My instructor, when explaining this definition has told me that the terms "systematic", "disciplined" and "quantifiable" imply "one after another, structured", "repeatable", and "measurable" among various other possible interpretations. However, it's the second part of the definition that confuses me. When talking about what "operation" implies, he described it this way: "it's the process of maintaining the software, like updating or patching pieces of it. Earlier we used to remove the whole software and change the source, recompile it and install it back. This part of definition is more or less of historical significance - the way engineering was thought of in other disciplines like Mechanical Engineering."
Question
I am really confused about what the definition implies about SE.
- If "operation" was just the process of maintaining the software, why include it in the definition independently?
- If not, What do the terms "Operation" and "Maintenance" imply in the definition?
- Don't maintenance and Operation and everything come under development? Let's say we are developing an automatic updater component of a software for maintenance, doesn't that mean we are "developing" the "maintenance" part too? Why include the other two in definition then?
Please explain me what SE really means. Thank You!
operation
is clearly wrong, since maintenance is already listed, it would actually be more "operating" the software your maintaning and developing.