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Development of Software Engineering: A Research Perspective

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Abstract

In the past 40 years, software engineering has emerged as an important sub-field of computer science and has made significant contribution to the software industry. Now it is gradually becoming a new independent discipline. This paper presents a survey of software engineering development from a research perspective. Firstly, the history of software engineering is reviewed with focus on the driving forces of software technology, the software engineering framework and the milestones of software engineering development. Secondly, after reviewing the past academic efforts, the current research activities are surveyed and new challenges brought by Internet are analyzed. Software engineering researches and activities in China are also reviewed. The work in Peking University is described as a representative.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, P.R. China

    Hong Mei, Dong-Gang Cao & Fu-Qing Yang

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  1. Hong Mei
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  2. Dong-Gang Cao
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  3. Fu-Qing Yang
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Correspondence to Hong Mei.

Additional information

Survey: This work was supported by several government-funded projects, including the National Key Projects in the State 6th to 10th Five-Year Plan, the National High Technology Development 863 Program of China, the National Grand Fundamental Research 973 Program of China, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, etc.

Hong Mei is a professor in computer science at the Peking University, China. He got the B.Eng. and M.S. degrees in computer science from Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics (NUAA) in 1984 and 1987 respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1992. His current research interests include: software engineering and software engineering environment, software reuse and software component technology, distributed object technology, etc.

Dong-Gang Cao is an assistant professor in the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science at the Peking University, China. He received the B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees in computer science & technology from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 1998 and 2001 respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from Peking University in 2005. His research interests include software engineering, Internet technologies and component-based software development.

Fu-Qing Yang is a professor in computer science in the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science, the Dean of the Faculty of Information and Engineering Sciences, Peking University. She is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an IEEE fellow.

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Mei, H., Cao, DG. & Yang, FQ. Development of Software Engineering: A Research Perspective. J Comput Sci Technol 21, 682–696 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-006-0682-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-006-0682-8

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