Software engineering is an emerging field. New terms are continually being generated, and new meanings are being adopted for existing terms. The Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology was undertaken to document this vocabulary. Its purpose is to identify terms currently used in software engineering and to present the current meanings of these terms. It is intended to serve as a useful reference for software engineers and for those in related fields and to promote clarity and consistency in the vocabulary of software engineering. It is recognized that software engineering is a dynamic area; thus the standard will be subject to appropriate change as becomes necessary.

This glossary defines terms in general use in the software engineering field. A term was excluded from the glossary if it was considered to be: (1) Parochial to one particular group or organization. (2) A company proprietary term. (3) A standard term in some other well defined discipline, although terms used in software engineering were repeated in this glossary to avoid conflicts. (4) A multi-word term whose meaning could be inferred from definitions of the component terms. (5) A term whose meaning for software engineering could be directly inferred from its standard English meaning.