All you need to know about Software Product Development
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Software development can be concisely framed as a process of writing and maintaining a source code. Broadly speaking, it has way too many aspects to look out for. Software product development is a process of coding, documenting, testing and maintaining a development framework, its life cycle and the end product. From conception of the idea to regular maintenance and updating, the whole process is called software product development. It is a carefully planned task that includes research, decision making, development, implementation, prototyping, maintenance, re-use, modifications, re-engineering and other similar activities. It is a vast process that requires highest quality technical know how.
Information technology is an undistinguished part of our world. The field is all about software products. With increased dependency on IT, softwares are becoming even more important. Softwares are developed for a variety of purposes, viz. for personal use, public use and custom use. There are two types or softwares, that is, application software and system software. System software handles the programming part of the software. It lies under the application software and supports it. Application software is the part that interacts with the user. If application is the external schema, then system software is its logical schema.
Software development cycle
Software product development cycle mainly consists of five stages, viz. identification of need, planning, designing, implementation & documentation and testing & maintenance. Out of various models, generally waterfall development model and agile development model is used to develop software products. In waterfall model, most of the risks are covered before designing, that is, during the need identification and planning phase. This saves time and avoids chances of re-writing the code. The model also ensures that no major significant changes are to be done again and again. Waterfall development model is effective only if developers can plan out the process thoroughly.
In this stage, the idea conceived is evaluated. Market research and surveys are conducted. Vital aspects such as demographics, customer behavior, competitors, market trends, profit margin, fixed expenditure, capital requirement, size of market, number of customers, minimum turnover required and other such factors are considered. A project report is formulated along with projected balance sheet and profit and loss account. The needs of customers and market as a whole is taken in account. Economic feasibility is checked. Total expenditure required to be done along with return on investment is calculated. After considering all the facts and statistics, a decision is reached. If its in favor next step is taken, that is, planning.
After reaching a decision, it is time to plan out the best way to incubate the idea and give it a proper form. Every business strives on resources. A person should have clear information on the status of resources. He should also have back-ups from where resources can be made available. The planning should be thorough, so that the software product developed is similar to the idea of the end result as conceived by the user. Planning takes every requirement into consideration. After all the basic and detailed information is gathered, analysis is done and working model is created. The scope of the project is laid along with important milestones.
The third phase is, designing. After establishing all the requirements, design layouts are formed. Before layout designing is done, hardware requirements, operating system, programming language, etc. are finalized. An algorithm or flow chart is created and then the process of designing is begun. After selecting a layout, prototyping is done. The prototypes designed are tested. Changes are made and again they are tested. Until the prototype is perfected, the process is carried on.
Implementation and documentation
After the prototype is tested thoroughly and finalized, actual coding is done. Based on the layout and prototype, the software is programmed. This process is known as implementation because the idea is implemented and codes are generated. Simultaneously, the internal design is created. This process is called documenting. It is done for maintenance and enhancement purposes. Documentation is more in waterfall models as compared to agile's. It also includes development of both internal and external APIs (Application Programming Interface).
Software testing is an important stage of product development. It is an integral part of the system that inspects the source code for bugs, faults and errors. The program is checked using various test cases and methods. Thorough testing is done to ensure a bug free code. The process is continued until the developers are sure that there are no more errors left. After the testing is completed, the software is deployed. A software product can be distributed using distribution platforms like App Store for Mac and iOS platforms. Constant evaluation is done for presence of viruses and bugs. Regular maintenance is undertaken to prevent new faults from developing. From time to time new updates are released to add features, remove major bugs etc. Maintenance is an ongoing task and is performed throughout the life of the software product.
Software frameworks are designs upon which developers can customize and create their own softwares. Frameworks provide re-usable codes, support programs, libraries, scripting language etc. for quick and easy coding. Software frameworks are used to create and modify APIs. They reduce consolidation and logic work.
Programming paradigm is the basic style of programming which differs from language to language. Its differs in concepts and abstractions used. A language can support more than one paradigm and different languages have their different set of paradigms. Some examples are domain specific modeling, object oriented programming methodologies etc.
Software product development is easy if planned properly and taken in a phased manner.
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