A comparison of development methods used in traditional engineering and software engineering

The term 'software engineering' is said to be contradictory as there is little scientific reasoning behind the process used. It was felt that the traditional engineering industry might contain some ideas which could be applied to software engineering in order to improve the scientific basis of software engineering. There are obvious differences between traditional engineering products and software products, but sufficient parallels have been identified for a comparison of methods to be considered justified. This report therefore concentrates on identifying similarities and possible 'lessons to be learnt' rather than looking for differences between the two fields. It is written from a software engineer's point of view and takes a general view of both fields.