Answer 1

Software engineering is defined as the systematic approach to the development, operation, maintenance, and retirement of software. The use of the term systematic approach for the development of software implies that methodologies are used for developing software which is repeatable. That is, if the methodologies are applied by different groups of people, similar software will be produced. The goal of software engineering is to take software development closer to science and engineering and away from ad-hoc approaches for development whose outcomes are not predictable but which have been used heavily in the past and still continue to be used for developing software.

Industrial strength software is meant to solve some problem of the client. (We use the term client in a very general sense meaning the people whose needs are to be satisfied by the software.) The problem therefore is to (systematically) develop software to satisfy the needs of some users or clients.

Though the basic problem is to systematically develop software to satisfy the client, there are some factors which affect the approaches selected to solve the problem. These factors are the primary forces that drive the progress and development in the field of software engineering. We consider these as the primary challenges for software engineering and discuss some of the key ones here