Abstract— It is the year 2025, the software industry has become the most capable and dependable medium helping organizations to provide products in a competitive manner. Software engineering support differentiation and rapid adaptability in enterprises. In 2025, commercial sectors have increased facility to cater for increasing software intensive demands. Information has complex requirements due to a need to be comprehensible across multi-national and multi-cultural global enterprises. Steady progress in software engineering has eventually led to the vision of making major innovations and wonderful opportunities through newly driven technology. One of most important features of the landscape of technology in 2025 is the contribution of the internet of things (‘IoT’), namely, the interconnectivity of physical items.
The past and future of software engineering is a vital subject in today’s world. The role it plays in the contemporary society influences the topics covered in the papers. In particular, some of the key topics include the current state-of-the-art and practice in software development, software of 2025, the development of software in 2040 and the possible problems and challenges of future works in the field. It describes some of the visionary ideas to tackling the engineering challenges with the examples of self-adaptive system, power monitoring system and development of more advanced software languages.
Keywords— Software engineering, Internet of Things, state of art, state of practice, web-based programming, end-user, self-adaptive system
I. INTRODUCTION
The world of 2025 involves the frequent application of the internet to find solutions to day-to-day problems including the availability and accessibility of information, enhance trade, communication. Lowry [11] identifies a fundamental problem involving the changing environments requiring urgent solutions that are available through innovation in software. De Lemos et al. [1] believe the changes in the environment are contributors to the evolution of the software industry to become more flexible, resilient, robust, dependable, and energy- efficient. With the growing technological influence, the challenges to successful development continue to persist, especially in developing active software management systems. In 2025, software engineering is a central sector in competitive business. The sector and its proponents are responsible for designing specific programs that manage to meet the consumer and human needs. In 2025, it has become necessary to apply the discovery of the discipline in establishing, maintaining, and developing end user satisfaction. The discipline of software engineering continues to increase its relevance on a day to day level in 2025 with ubiquity of mobile computers. The importance of software engineering as indentified by KO, et al. [2] includes reducing the cost of developing software, improving time management through designing efficient programs, reducing complexity in understanding software models and increases productivity. It is arguable that both present and future challenges affecting humans require the application of software engineering on a much larger scale.
The paper comprises of seven sections organized as follows: Section 2 describes the current state-of-the-art and state-of-practice in software engineering, section 3 covers the software of 2025 while part 4 discusses the software engineering of 2040. The information included in parts 5 and 6 involve the challenges and problems of software development in 2040 and the visionary ideas to address the challenges respectively. The paper concludes in Section 7 providing a summary of the discussions and a direction for future engineering in software.
II. CURRENT STATE-OF-ART AND STATE-OF-THE-PRACTICE IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
In developing software products, it is considerable to understand the state of practice in 2025. Through research study by KO, et al. [2], most programming in 2025 is not written by professional software developers. They are usually people who have command on other domains and systems. Due to the need to incorporate less professional human resources the state of practice in 2025 has created a complex situation. Vyatkin [3] explains fundamentals in designing software including a balance between the process and product, function versus non-functionality. Moreover, it is important to consider any new characteristic of the program before its implementation. For the software user in 2025, a customized experience meeting the goals of a particular person is important. The challenges that appear in software engineering are particularly focused on the efficiency and compatibility of the software for long. Different end users drive different issues that are not easy to be managed. However, through complex but helpful measures solutions are possible.
In 2025, programming utilizes more models allowing its extensive scale, possibilities and adaptation. The ability to share codes establishes the application of interactive web, especially in devices such as the mobile phones and personal computers according to Ko et al. [2]. Vyatkin [3] further provides examples of the common domains characterizing the state-of-the-art software engineering including web-commerce, trade, information processing, database management, automation, and real-time control of activities. The attainability of efficient functioning of these domains is an outcome of the development of programming languages suitable for the particular field.
As for software engineering in automation of the industrial sector, Vyatkin [3] identifies some of the most important operational standards including IEC 61131-3 which provides up to four different programming languages to facilitate the mobility of software in automation. Moreover, the standard integrates software from one programmable logic controller (PLC) type into other allowing a plus in the number of vendors. ISA 88/ 95 are two relevant standards acting as solutions to problems relating to system integration and application configuration [3]. Other examples include IEC 61499 focusing on improved interoperation of automation software. IEC 61850 addresses the need to work with regular communication as a means to prevent the use of individualistic protocols in the automation of power systems. It goes further to disintegrate power subunits to generate a representation of an object-orientated system. The standard manages to encapsulate data attributes, which is used to allow the functioning of devices [3]. Apart from data encapsulation, the standard wraps the data representing it in the form of logic nodes (LN).
According to Lethbridge et al. [4], software maintenance is an important practice in software engineering. The process includes the updating of software supporting documentation as frequently as possible to manage information of the code efficiently. Lethbridge et al. [4] provide a survey on the frequency of documentation of changes in software information. The study included some companies where based on the results obtained, software engineers are failing to provide a frequent update to the evolution in coding. The study further highlights that document updating is a contribution of factors such as the amount of changes in the code and the urgency of a change request. Concerning documentation, Lethbridge et al. [4] explain how it performs different functions including assisting the user to learn about a program, testing a system, maintaining the software, answering questions concerning the system, and solving problems occurring in the software system.
Graaf et al. [5] address a rather complex common state-of-the-practice in software engineering involving the development of the embedded software. The software is complex, though its use is rapidly spreading in the society. Embedded systems require specific technologies determined by factors such as cost, time, and reliability [5]. The imperative is the production and selling of hardware, a product of the software. Although the devices operate using the technology, the software itself is not for sale. Its function includes facilitating the operation of the gadgets. The advantages of the software include less power consumption, a rather minimum memory capacity to operate, and most importantly is the few people needed to run the equipment efficiently. Embedded software is a realization of the usefulness of automation. The internet of things (‘IoT’) provides an interconnection of networks, extrapolated from Gubbi et al. [8]. In particular, IoT applies the use of the embedded system. About the extensive use of the internet and software, Gubbi et al. [8] explain that high usage of the web and overreliance on software solutions will contribute to massive amounts of data. The availability of extensive data interprets to the need more storage, management, and modification of the data analysis systems. In 2025, there is widespread use of IoT and prominent applications are noticeable in the media, the monitoring of environmental conditions, the management of infrastructure, design and manufacturing, the management of energy, healthcare provision including the provision of medications, the automation of homes, transportation and consumer purposes [3].
Based on Lowry [11], knowledge-based software engineering (KBSE) is another yet well-developed system of 2025. The success of the development is an outcome of the rapid innovations in the hardware making it necessary to advance the software as well. In 2025, KBSE heavily relies on computer- aided software, which enables the re-modification of the hardware. An interesting segment in 2025 is the ability of KBSE to realize the transformational programming [11]. In agreement with the knowledge from Vyatkin [3] on the spread of automation, Lowry [11] describes transformational programming as an automatic system effectively integrating both prototyping and coding activities. About automation in coding, it is important to highlight that 2025 marks a decrease in human guidance in the development of codes.
As provided by Boehm [6], there is no doubt that a characteristic of 2025 is the extensive application of web-based programming. The creation of web-based systems provides for the numerous products in software characterizing the communication industry. Today, software developed programs allow mass communication through social websites incorporated into applications. Moreover, the use of the application becomes accessible through their presence in gadgets such as mobile phones, tablets, and personal computers. It is important to realize the development of Smartphone, iPhone, iPad, and tables in connection with providing the customer with adequate application to carry out greater function using simpler gadgets such as the phone. Consequently, the use of web-based programs transforms into increased output in both the software and hardware. Currently, there is an upsurge in online business markets using software developed applications. The software is being integrated into all the key industries to provide information, educate the user as a market platform, and to obtain customer feedback.
