In Search of Software Engineering Foundations: A Theoretical and Trans-disciplinary Perspective

Abstract

Technical innovations and trends have been changing from time to time as a major driving force for Software Engineering (SE). Although it can be regarded as a relatively young discipline usually driven by industrial needs or practices, fundamental problems of SE still continue to exist. It is thought that the problem may be not only in adopting a domain specific technology or method, but also in understanding the foundations and use of theories in SE. Therefore, investigating the trans-disciplinary aspects of SE may pave the way of some solutions while it may shed light on building the theoretical background of possible empirical studies. However, the review of SE literature shows the little effort given to this research gap, and thus, this paper attempts to offer a conceptual framework and brings a different perspective for understanding the theoretical and trans-disciplinary foundations of SE as a discipline.