Software Engineering in the Twenty-First Century

Michael R. Lowry There is substantial evidence that AI technology can meet the requirements of the large potential market that will exist for knowledge-based software engineering at the turn of the century. In this article, which forms the conclusion to the AAAI Press book Automating Software Design, edited by Michael Lowry and Robert McCartney, Michael Lowry discusses the future of software engineering, and how knowledge-based software engineering (KBSE) progress will lead to system development environments. Specifically, Lowry examines how KBSE techniques promote additive programming methods and how they can be developed and introduced in an evolutionary way. The enabling technology will come from AI, formal methods, programming language theory, and other areas of computer science. This technology will enable much of the knowledge now lost in the software development process to be captured in machineencoded form and automated.