Software engineering is an engineering-based approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the engineering design process to design, develop, test, maintain, and evaluate computer software. The term programmer is sometimes used as a synonym, but may emphasize software implementation over design and can also lack connotations of engineering education or skills.

In computer science, a data structure is a data organization, management, and storage format that is usually chosen for efficient access to data.[1][2][3] More precisely, a data structure is a collection of data values, the relationships among them, and the functions or operations that can be applied to the data,[4] i.e., it is an algebraic structure about data. Data structures serve as the basis for abstract data types (ADT). The ADT defines the logical form of the data type. The data structure implements the physical form of the data type.

Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata, as well as the computational problems that can be solved using them. It is a theory in theoretical computer science with close connections to mathematical logic. An automaton (automata in plural) is an abstract self-propelled computing device which follows a predetermined sequence of operations automatically. An automaton with a finite number of states is called a Finite Automaton (FA) or Finite-State Machine (FSM).