Noun
software engineering (uncountable)
The subfield of engineering concerned with applying a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.
Indeed, the woes of Software Engineering are not due to lack of tools, or proper management, but largely due to lack of sufficient technical competence. Niklaus Wirth
Software Engineering is that part of Computer Science which is too difficult for the Computer Scientist. Friedrich Bauer
Software engineering is the establishment and use of sound engineering principles to obtain economically software that is reliable and works on real machines efficiently. Friedrich Bauer
The entire history of software engineering is that of the rise in levels of abstraction. Grady Booch
Software Engineering might be science; but that's not what I do. I'm a hacker, not an engineer. Jamie Zawinski
As economics is known as "The Miserable Science", software engineering should be known as "The Doomed Discipline", doomed because it cannot even approach its goal since its goal is self-contradictory. (...) Software engineering has accepted as its charter "How to program if you cannot. Edsger W. Dijkstra