Modern software systems are extremely complex, and this complexity makes them difficult to create, debug, maintain, update, and secure. Because software systems are an increasingly vital part of just about everything that goes on in the world today, it is imperative that we make it easier to develop and maintain them in order to prevent a breakdown of critical systems, whether due to developer error, cyber attack, failure to apply updates, or any other reason. We propose a new software engineering paradigm which we call "Software-Defined Software" which can make it easier to work with such complex software systems. We break down complex systems into a set of components and define the methods by which these components communicate with each other and how the overall program state is maintained in a way that allows for significant improvements in the software creation, debugging, maintenance, updating, and security processes.

Examining Committee: 

 

                          Chair:               Dr. Ashok Agrawala
                          Dept rep:         Dr.  Adam Porter
                          Members:        Dr. Pete Keleher