Software construction is the central activity in software development; construction is the only activity that's guaranteed to happen on every project.

The main activities in construction are detailed design, coding, debugging, integration, and developer testing (unit testing and integration testing).

Other common terms for construction are "coding" and "programming."

The quality of the construction substantially affects the quality of the software.

In the final analysis, your understanding of how to do construction determines how good a programmer you are, and that's the subject of the rest of the book.