The Future of Software Engineering Essay
Essay #1 – The Future of Software Engineering in 5, 10, and 50
years
Requirements for Essay
For the essay, your topic is “The Future of Software Engineering in 5, 10, and 50 years”. It is time for you to think about the future of
the field and to write your opinion about it. Your opinions need to be explained, justified, and supported (by citing credible,
trustworthy, verified sources
eferences that support some of your ideas and claims – these can be trusted news outlets and technology
publications, scientific articles, etc., but NOT someone’s opinion on a forum, Q&A site, or blog). When addressing the topic, conside
the following aspects for each of the time periods (5, 10, 50 years):
● Software process – How will software be developed in the future? What process do you think will be followed? Will it be
similar to Agile/Waterfall/Ad-hoc or will it be something different? If different, how do you envision it to be? How will
equirements be elicited from clients? How will code be written? How will software be tested? Will there be more automation?
If so, what will be automated and why do you think that?
● Software team composition and organization – Will software be developed in teams? Who will be on those teams? What
will their qualifications/skills be? What will their responsibilities be? How will the teams communicate? How will automation
impact team composition, organization, and communication?
● Software bugs - How do you think software bugs will be handled in the future? Who will detect and fix them and how?
● Software’s impact on society and the planet – How do you think software’s impact on society and the planet will evolve
over the next 5, 10, 50 years? What aspects of society, what domains that are cu
ently not automated by software will be
automated in the future? How will software help or harm the fight against climate change? How will software further help o
harm our lives and the world around us?
● Software trends – What technology trends do you think will be prominent in software in the next 5, 10, 50 years?
The following requirements must be met to earn at least a passing grade of C- on the essay:
1. The essay must discuss all of the aspects mentioned above.
2. The essay must have at least 1,500 words (references are NOT considered part of the word count).
3. The paper must have 1-inch margins on all sides. The font must be Arial, Courier, or Times New Roman, in size 11
or 12. The text needs to be single spaced.
4. You need to organize your essay clearly and logically. You must have at least the following main sections in you
essay:
a. Introduction. In this section you will need to talk about software and its importance for today’s society and give a high level
overview of what you will be talking about in the rest of the essay.
. Software engineering in 5 years. In this section you will discuss where you envision software and software engineering to be
in 5 years from now. You must have a subsection for each of the 5 different aspects mentioned above (software process,
software team composition and organization, software bugs, software’s impact on society and the planet, and software trends)
where you discuss your opinion on each aspect.
c. Software Engineering in 10 years. In this section you will discuss where you envision software and software engineering to be
in 10 years from now. You must have a subsection for each of the
5 different aspects mentioned above (software process, software team composition and organization, software bugs,
software’s impact on society and the planet, and software trends) where you discuss your opinion on each aspect.
a. Software Engineering in 50 years. In this section you will discuss where you envision software and
software engineering to be in 50 years from now. You must have a subsection for each of the
5 different aspects mentioned above (software process, software team composition and organization, software bugs,
software’s impact on society and the planet, and software trends) where you discuss your opinion on each aspect.
a. Conclusions. In this section you will summarize your thoughts on the topic.
. References. In this section you will include a numbered list of all the sources you have used or refe
ed to
in your essay (you must have at least 5). The format must be the following for each source used (exclude
the fields that are not applicable):
[1] Authors, publication title/source, year published, publisher, pages.
1. Support your opinions with research and proper citations in English to sources whenever possible. If you
have a certain opinion, what information or knowledge led you to form that opinion? You must include at least 5
citations to credible, trustworthy, verified sources
eferences that support ideas in your essay. List the references at
the end of the essay in a separate section called “References”, and number them, each on a separate line(s).
2. Use co
ect English grammar and punctuation.