Software engineering, the software process and their support

Mankind is becoming increasingly dependent on the availability of software and its continuing validity. To achieve this consistently and reliably, in an operational domain that is forever changing, requires disciplined execution of the software development and evolution process and its effective management. That is the goal of advanced software engineering. The author summarises basic concepts of software development process. This leads to a principle of uncertainty, analysis of its implications for the software development process, an overview of computer-assisted software engineering (CASE) and brief comments on the societal relevance of these topics