What are the General issues that affect most software

Different types of systems need different development processes. For example, real-time software in an aircraft has to be completely specified before development begins. In e-commerce systems, the specification and the program are usually developed together. Consequently, these generic activities may be organized in different ways and described at different levels of detail depending on the type of software being developed. There are many different types of software. There is no universal software engineering method or technique that is applicable for all of these. However, there are three general issues that affect many different types of software:

Heterogeneity

Increasingly, systems are required to operate as distributed systems across networks that include different types of computer and mobile devices. As well as running on general-purpose computers, software may also have to execute on mobile phones. You often have to integrate new software with older legacy systems written in different programming languages. The challenge here is to develop techniques for building dependable software that is flexible enough to cope with this heterogeneity

Business and social change

Business and society are changing incredibly quickly as emerging economies develop and new technologies become available. They need to be able to change their existing software and to rapidly develop new software. Many traditional software engineering techniques are time consuming and delivery of new systems often takes longer than planned. They need to evolve so that the time required for software to deliver value to its customers is reduced.

Security and trust

As software is intertwined with all aspects of our lives, it is essential that we can trust that software. This is especially true for remote software systems accessed through a web page or web service interface. We have to make sure that malicious users cannot attack our software and that information security is maintained.

Of course, these are not independent issues. For example, it may be necessary to make rapid changes to a legacy system to provide it with a web service interface. To address these challenges we will need new tools and techniques as well as innovative ways of combining and using existing software engineering methods.