Software :
Software is all things which are not hardware in the system.
No man is an island :
Software has no life independent from hardware, and must consider the properties of the hardware systems on which it resides, as well as the people involved.
Engineering :
Engineering is a process of design, and trial-construction, of something, which aims to produce a system with a specified set of quality-and-cost attributes. We also accept the notion that engineering is the application of heuristics to solving problems.
Software engineering :
Software engineering is primarily a design process; construction and use confirm that the right design ideas have been found.
Software engineering specialists :
The software engineering discipline is already so complex that specialists in sub-disciplines are required to find the best designs.
The bricklayer principle :
Calling a programmer a software engineer does not make him an engineer any more than calling a bricklayer a construction engineer makes him an engineer.
The real software engineer principle :
A real software engineer can optimize any single attribute to become ten times better than it would otherwise have been.
The software engineering process principle :
Software engineering has multiple measurable requirements as input, and appropriate design solutions as output.