Software Engineering and Information Systems are the applications of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches. It is the application of engineering to software because it integrates significant mathematics, computer science and practices whose origins are in engineering. Prevalence of software in society provides significant opportunities to do good or cause harm, so one should ensure that the efforts are used to do good. Design and Security of software systems raises numerous open legal and ethical issues that are currently being addressed at both the academic and industrial levels. Many of these issues raise some clear conflicts between the global versus national interests, as well as government versus public interests. The bulk of programming consists of making a large number of small choices while attempting to solve a larger set of problems. How wisely those choices are made depends largely upon the programmer's skill and expertise. Use of solid coding techniques and good programming practices to create high quality code plays an important role in software quality and performance. By consistently applying a well-defined coding standard and proper coding techniques, and holding routine code reviews, a team of programmers working on a software project is more likely to yield a software system that is easier to comprehend and maintain. Software engineers, information system analysts, and researchers must always use the public interest as the highest and governing principle and must contribute to the society either by direct participation or by teaching, to the analysis, specification, design, development, certification, maintenance, and testing of software systems.
