Software development

Software development (also known as application development, software design, designing software, software application development, enterprise application development, or platform development) is the development of a software product. The term "software development" may be used to refer to the activity of computer programming, which is the process of writing and maintaining the source code, but in a broader sense of the term it includes all that is involved between the conception of the desired software through to the final manifestation of the software, ideally in a planned and structured process.Therefore, software development may include research, new development, prototyping, modification, reuse, re-engineering, maintenance, or any other activities that result in software products.
Software can be developed for a variety of purposes, the three most common being to meet specific needs of a specific client/business (the case with custom software), to meet a perceived need of some set of potential users (the case with commercial and open source software), or for personal use (e.g. a scientist may write software to automate a mundane task). Embedded software development, that is, the development of embedded software such as used for controlling consumer products, requires the development process to be integrated with the development of the controlled physical product.
The need for better quality control of the software development process has given rise to the discipline of software engineering, which aims to apply the systematic approach exemplified in the engineering paradigm to the process of software development.

There are several different approaches to software development, much like the various views of political parties toward governing a country. Some take a more structured, engineering-based approach to developing business solutions  whereas others may take a more incremental approach, where software evolves as it is developed piece-by-piece. Most methodologies share some combination of the following stages of software development:

• Analyzing the problem
• Market research
• Gathering requirements for the proposed business solution
• Devising a plan or design for the software-based solution
• Implementation (coding) of the software
• Testing the software
• Deployment
• Maintenance and bug fixing

Software development methodology

A software development methodology or system development methodology in software engineering is a framework that is used to structure, plan, and control the process of developing an information system.

The software development methodology (also known as SDM) framework didn't emerge until the 1960s. According to Elliott (2004) the systems development life cycle (SDLC) can be considered to be the oldest formalized methodology framework for building information systems. The main idea of the SDLC has been "to pursue the development of information systems in a very deliberate, structured and methodical way, requiring each stage of the life cycle from inception of the idea to delivery of the final system, to be carried out rigidly and sequentially within the context of the framework being applied. The main target of this methodology framework in the 1960s was "to develop large scale functional business systems in an age of large scale business conglomerates. Information systems activities revolved around heavy data processing and number crunching routines.

As a noun

As a noun, a software development methodology is a framework that is used to structure, plan, and control the process of developing an information system - this includes the pre-definition of specific deliverable and artifacts that are created and completed by a project team to develop or maintain an application.

The three basic approaches applied to software development methodology frameworks.

A wide variety of such frameworks have evolved over the years, each with its own recognized strengths and weaknesses. One software development methodology framework is not necessarily suitable for use by all projects. Each of the available methodology frameworks are best suited to specific kinds of projects, based on various technical, organizational, project and team considerations.^[2]

These software development frameworks are often bound to some kind of organization, which further develops, supports the use, and promotes the methodology framework. The methodology framework is often defined in some kind of formal documentation. Specific software development methodology frameworks (noun) include:

• Rational Unified Process (RUP, IBM) since 1998.
• Agile Unified Process (AUP) since 2005 by Scott Ambler

As a verb

As a verb, the software development methodology is an approach used by organizations and project teams to apply the software development methodology framework (noun). Specific software development methodologies (verb) include:

1970s

• Structured programming since 1969
• Cap Gemini SDM, originally from PANDATA, the first English translation was published in 1974. SDM stands for System Development Methodology

1980s

• Structured systems analysis and design method (SSADM) from 1980 onwards
• Information Requirement Analysis/Soft systems methodology

1990s

• Object-oriented programming (OOP) developed in the early 1960s, and became a dominant programming approach during the mid-1990s
• Rapid application development (RAD), since 1991
• Dynamic systems development method (DSDM), since 1994
• Scrum, since 1995
• Team software process, since 1998
• Extreme programming, since 1999

Verb approaches

Every software development methodology approach acts as a basis for applying specific frameworks to develop and maintain software. Several software development approaches have been used since the origin of information technology. These are:

• Waterfall: a linear framework
• Prototyping: an iterative framework
• Incremental: a combined linear-iterative framework
• Spiral: a combined linear-iterative framework
• Rapid application development (RAD): an iterative framework
• Extreme Programming