Interview with Jean-Michel Bruel, the importance of software engineering

We are publishing the sixth video in a series of interviews presenting the research work of our different departments. Jean-Michel BRUEL, teacher-researcher at FSL department – Team Sm@rt, explains his research work on software engineering.

What is software engineering?

The object of study for software engineering researchers is the software itself. This implies thinking about the tools, methods and processes by which quality software is developed. One is not interested in solving a particular problem with a particular piece of software, but in how to develop good software. This is a fundamental field, which cuts across all of computer science and encompasses technical (languages, tools), methodological (methods, processes) and human (interactions, collaboration) considerations. Software engineering has followed the major trends in science in general and in society, the place and importance of the human being, access to the greatest number of people and the rise in the level of abstraction. Software engineering has come closer to the issues of massive data and learning, due to the explosion of complexity of today’s applications. For example, a modern car contains more than ten million lines of code.

What is the challenge of research in this area?

An interesting issue at the moment concerns the rapprochement with other scientific disciplines, which are also major manipulators of models. There is also the use of artificial intelligence, learning and data science, which lead to thinking about software in terms of innovations in these fields. For Jean-Michel BRUEL, the main challenge for research on software engineering would be to convince industrialists and French ministries of the importance and transversal nature of this field. North America and certain European countries have understood this, but France is lagging far behind in this area. This is why it is important to correct this situation if we want to continue to have confidence in our software.