Practice · Software Engineering in the Age of AI

Q1

Which statement best captures the difference between programming and software engineering?

A Software engineering is programming integrated over time: teams, users, change and years of operation. B Software engineering means writing code without bugs. C Programming is done by students; software engineering is done by managers. D Software engineering uses more advanced programming languages.

Q2

The phrase "software engineering" became popular at a 1968 NATO conference mainly because…

A engineers wanted to replace programmers with machines. B many large software projects were late, over budget or did not work — the "software crisis". C computers had become too slow for large programs. D the first programming language had just been invented.

Q3

In the Ariane 5 failure (1996), what was the deepest root cause?

A The rocket had no backup navigation computer. B The programmers used the wrong programming language. C A hacker changed the flight software. D Code reused from Ariane 4 was not re-checked against the new rocket's flight conditions, so a conversion overflowed.

Q4

Knight Capital lost about 440 million US dollars in 45 minutes in 2012. Which engineering practice would most directly have prevented it?

A Automated, verified deployment to every server, plus removing old dead code instead of reusing its flag B Writing the trading code in a faster language C Adding more comments to the code D Hiring more programmers

Q5

The CrowdStrike incident of July 2024 crashed about 8.5 million Windows computers. What made the damage so large?

A Customers had not paid for support. B The faulty update was delivered to all customers at once instead of step by step (no staged rollout). C The update was written by an AI. D Windows has no error handling at all.

Q6

Which of these is not one of Brooks's four essential difficulties of software?

A Slow compilers B Complexity C Invisibility D Changeability

Q7

A team spends a week deciding how StudyBuddy should behave when a student's question matches two courses with conflicting rules. According to Brooks, this is…

A essential complexity, which comes from the problem itself B accidental complexity, which a better IDE would remove C a sign that the team is not using AI D a design error that should never happen

Q8

Based on Brooks's distinction, where do today's AI coding assistants help the most?

A Taking legal responsibility for the product B Deciding what users need C Resolving conflicts between stakeholders D Reducing accidental complexity: boilerplate, syntax, API lookup, translation between languages

Q9

"Are we building the product right?" is the question of…

A deployment B requirements elicitation C validation D verification

Q10

StudyBuddy passes all 300 automated tests, which were written from the specification. In a trial, instructors refuse to use it because Buddy gives full solutions to homework. What failed?

A Verification B Compilation C Validation D Nothing — passing all tests means the product is correct

Q11

Over the full life of a long-lived system, where is most of the money usually spent?

A Writing the user manual B Buying the development computers C After the first release: fixing, adapting and extending the system (maintenance and evolution) D Writing the first version of the code

Q12

Why is a misunderstood requirement much cheaper to fix in week 1 than after release?

A Because requirements cannot be changed after release B It is not cheaper; the cost is the same at every stage C Because after release the fix may need redesign, new code, new tests, a new release, data repairs and user support D Because developers are paid less at the start of a project

Q13

Which requirement is written as a measurable quality attribute?

A The app must be fast. B The app must be user-friendly. C 95% of Buddy's answers must appear within 5 seconds when 300 students are online. D The app should be as secure as possible.

Q14

"A student cannot read another student's AI-chat history." Which quality attribute is this mainly about?

A Portability B Performance efficiency C Maintainability D Security

Q15

Adding two-factor login to StudyBuddy makes it harder for attackers, but students complain that logging in now takes longer. This illustrates…

A that security is never worth the cost B that quality attributes can conflict and must be traded off C a portability problem D a bug in the login code

Q16

An AI assistant gives you this method. What is the best next step before merging it?

// Returns true if the year is a leap year
static boolean isLeapYear(int year) {
    return year % 4 == 0;
}

A Ask the AI again and merge whichever answer is shorter. B Test edge cases such as 1900, 2000, 2023 and 2024 against the real rule — 1900 will expose the bug. C Rename the method so no one uses it. D Merge it: the comment says it is correct.

Q17

In the 2025 METR study, experienced open-source developers worked on their own large projects with and without AI tools. What did it find?

A They were about 19% slower with AI tools, while believing they had been faster. B They refused to use the AI tools. C AI tools had no effect at all on anything. D They were ten times faster with AI tools.

Q18

The 2022 "Asleep at the Keyboard?" study asked GitHub Copilot to complete code in security-sensitive scenarios. Roughly what share of the generated programs contained a known type of vulnerability?

A The study did not look at security B Exactly 100% C About 40% D Almost none

Q19

Which situation is the best fit for an AI coding assistant, according to the evidence in this chapter?

A Approving a release without running the tests B Choosing which laws apply to students in China and the USA C Deciding whether StudyBuddy should store student grades D Writing a small, well-defined utility (e.g., parsing a date string) that you will review and test

Q20

Omar pastes an export of 2,000 StudyBuddy user records (names, emails, chat histories) into a public AI chatbot to "find duplicate accounts". What is the main problem?

A There is no problem if the answer is correct. B Chatbots cannot find duplicates. C The chatbot may be slow. D Personal data has been sent to a third party without authorization — a privacy and security incident.

Q21

A student says: "The AI wrote that function, so if it has a bug it is not my fault." In professional software engineering this is…

A correct — AI vendors are responsible for all bugs B incorrect — the engineer and organization that ship the code are responsible for it C correct only for open-source projects D correct if the AI was paid for

Q22

Therac-25's earlier models had hardware safety interlocks; the Therac-25 relied on software alone. What general lesson does this teach?

A In safety-critical systems, do not remove independent safety barriers just because software "should" handle it. B Race conditions cannot happen in medical devices. C Software should never be used in medicine. D Hardware is always better than software.

Q23

Which activity asks "How will we structure the system?" — for example, deciding that StudyBuddy's AI calls run in a separate service?

A Validation B Maintenance C Design / architecture D Requirements

Q24

Why does "invisibility" (Brooks) make team work harder?

A Because code is written in a small font B Because there is no single picture that shows the whole system, so people build different mental models and misunderstand each other C Because software cannot be printed D Because users cannot see the source code

Q25

Healthcare.gov (2013) crashed on launch day. Which combination of causes is most accurate?

A Many contractors with no single technical leader, late-changing requirements, and almost no end-to-end load testing B A cyber-attack from another country C A hardware failure in one server D A single typo in the login page

Q26 Short answer

Explain the difference between essential and accidental complexity, giving one StudyBuddy example of each, and say which one AI assistants mainly reduce.

Q27 Short answer

Choose one of the five failures in this chapter (Ariane 5, Therac-25, Knight Capital, Healthcare.gov, CrowdStrike). In 4–6 sentences, describe what happened, its root cause(s), and two engineering practices that would have prevented it or limited the damage.

Q28 Short answer

Write three measurable quality-attribute requirements for StudyBuddy, each for a different attribute (for example performance, reliability, usability, security). Label each one.

Q29 Short answer

Your classmate says: "Since AI can write code now, software engineering courses are useless." Write a short, respectful reply (4–6 sentences) using at least two ideas from this chapter.

Q30 Short answer

List the six lifecycle activities of this chapter and, for each one, give one concrete StudyBuddy task.