Computing is any activity that uses computers to manage, process, and communicate information. It includes development of both hardware and software. Computing is a critical, integral component of modern industrial technology. Major computing disciplines include computer engineering, software engineering, computer science, information systems, and information technology. The European equivalent of computing is informatics.
Computer science is the study of processes that interact with data and that can be represented as data in the form of programs. It enables the use of algorithms to manipulate, store, and communicate digital information. A computer scientist studies the theory of computation and the design of software systems.
Software engineering is the systematic application of engineering approaches to the development of software. Software engineering is a branch of computing science.
Software architecture refers to the fundamental structures of a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. Each structure comprises software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements and relations. The architecture of a software system is a metaphor, analogous to the architecture of a building. It functions as a blueprint for the system and the developing project, laying out the tasks necessary to be executed by the design teams.
In software engineering, a software design pattern is a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. It is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into source or machine code. Rather, it is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations. Design patterns are formalized best practices that the programmer can use to solve common problems when designing an application or system.
A modeling language is any artificial language that can be used to express information or knowledge or systems in a structure that is defined by a consistent set of rules. The rules are used for interpretation of the meaning of components in the structure.
Model-driven architecture (MDA) is a software design approach for the development of software systems. It provides a set of guidelines for the structuring of specifications, which are expressed as models. Model-driven architecture is a kind of domain engineering, and supports model-driven engineering of software systems. It was launched by the Object Management Group (OMG) in 2001.
A domain-specific language (DSL) is a computer language specialized to a particular application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging from widely used languages for common domains, such as HTML for web pages, down to languages used by only one or a few pieces of software, such as MUSH soft code. DSLs can be further subdivided by the kind of language, and include domain-specific markup languages, domain-specific modeling languages, and domain-specific programming languages. Special-purpose computer languages have always existed in the computer age, but the term "domain-specific language" has become more popular due to the rise of domain-specific modeling. Simpler DSLs, particularly ones used by a single application, are sometimes informally called mini-languages.
Grady Booch is an American software engineer, best known for developing the Unified Modeling Language (UML) with Ivar Jacobson and James Rumbaugh. He is recognized internationally for his innovative work in software architecture, software engineering, and collaborative development environments.
In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software providing generic functionality can be selectively changed by additional user-written code, thus providing application-specific software. It provides a standard way to build and deploy applications and is a universal, reusable software environment that provides particular functionality as part of a larger software platform to facilitate development of software applications, products and solutions. Software frameworks may include support programs, compilers, code libraries, tool sets, and application programming interfaces (APIs) that bring together all the different components to enable development of a project or system.
Logic in computer science covers the overlap between the field of logic and that of computer science. The topic can essentially be divided into three main areas:
A metamodel or surrogate model is a model of a model, and metamodeling is the process of generating such metamodels. Thus metamodeling or meta-modeling is the analysis, construction and development of the frames, rules, constraints, models and theories applicable and useful for modeling a predefined class of problems. As its name implies, this concept applies the notions of meta- and modeling in software engineering and systems engineering. Metamodels are of many types and have diverse applications.
Architecture description languages (ADLs) are used in several disciplines: system engineering, software engineering, and enterprise modelling and engineering.
Domain-specific modeling (DSM) is a software engineering methodology for designing and developing systems, such as computer software. It involves systematic use of a domain-specific language to represent the various facets of a system.
In software engineering, domain analysis, or product line analysis, is the process of analyzing related software systems in a domain to find their common and variable parts. It is a model of wider business context for the system. The term was coined in the early 1980s by James Neighbors. Domain analysis is the first phase of domain engineering. It is a key method for realizing systematic software reuse.
Domain engineering, also called product line engineering, is the entire process of reusing domain knowledge in the production of new software systems. It is a key concept in systematic software reuse. A key idea in systematic software reuse is the domain. Most organizations work in only a few domains. They repeatedly build similar systems within a given domain with variations to meet different customer needs. Rather than building each new system variant from scratch, significant savings may be achieved by reusing portions of previous systems in the domain to build new ones.
Model-driven engineering (MDE) is a software development methodology that focuses on creating and exploiting domain models, which are conceptual models of all the topics related to a specific problem. Hence, it highlights and aims at abstract representations of the knowledge and activities that govern a particular application domain, rather than the computing concepts.
ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010Systems and software engineering — Architecture description is an international standard for architecture descriptions of systems and software.
A domain is the target subject of a computer program. It is a term used in software engineering. Formally it represents the target subject of a specific programming project, whether narrowly or broadly defined. For example, a particular programming project might have had as a goal the creation of a program for a particular hospital, and that hospital would be the domain. Or the project could be expanded in scope to include all hospitals as their domain. In a computer programming design, you define a domain by delineating a set of common requirements, terminology, and functionality for any software program constructed to solve a problem in the area of computer programming, known as domain engineering. The word domain is also taken as a synonym of application domain.
Domain in the realm of software engineering commonly refers to the subject area on which the application is intended to apply. In other words, during application development, the domain is the "sphere of knowledge and activity around which the application logic revolves." —Andrew Powell-Morse
Domain: A sphere of knowledge, influence, or activity. The subject area to which the user applies a program is the domain of the software. —Eric Evans
Computer science, information science and systems engineering, ontology engineering is a field which studies the methods and methodologies for building ontologies: formal representations of a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between those concepts. A large-scale representation of abstract concepts such as actions, time, physical objects and beliefs would be an example of ontological engineering. Ontology engineering is one of the areas of applied ontology, and can be seen as an application of philosophical ontology. Core ideas and objectives of ontology engineering are also central in conceptual modeling.
