[thelist] software development process...

[bruce]

Ken,

What we are/where shooting for, is basically a series of steps to be used as
a guide when developing a project. Kind of a project list if you will. We're
not trying to get into some verbose methodology, etc...

>From our perspective, every software project, goes through specific areas.
In a lot of cases, the developer might not specifically note that he's doing
project requirements analysis, but he still kind of goes through the process
when he starts the project!!

So we're basically looking to create a reasonable functional list of what
people go through when they produce software applications:

Example:
	Identify Project Opportunity
	Get/Identify Requirements
	Build Specification
	Review Specifications prior to coding
	Develop Testing/Begin to Think about testing
	Identify Tools for project
	Think About the End User
	Develop/Save Incremental Versions of the App
	Save All Changes Frequently to Source Repository
	Identify Functions from Specfifcation
	Write Code (make sure code is seriously commented!)
	Test Code
	Save Code
	Repeat untill done/satisfied
	Get Sign Off
	Modify docs to tell what you've done/create/written
	Etc...

Thanks

-Bruce
bedouglas at earthlink.net


-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of Ken Schaefer
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 1:00 AM
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: Re: [thelist] software development process...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: "bruce" <bedouglas at earthlink.net>
Subject: [thelist] software development process...


: thought we'd toss this out to see what repsonses we get...
: we're developing a quick/rough guideline to kind of establish
: a "software development process"...
:
: we're interested to see what others have kind of established,
: or used as a basic process. the process can be for
: small/large projects....
:
: we're also interested if you have pointers to sites that
: provide actual software development processes, or
: steps to the process.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What's wrong with the myriad of methodologies that's already out there?
Waterfall, Reducing Risk, Evolving Prototype, etc, etc.

Steve McConnell's (Rapid Software Development) book covers a lot of them
briefly
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1556159005/
A dedicated project management (or systems analysis/design) book would
probably cover them in more depth.

Certainly one thing I've taken away from every project management course
I've been on: there's no such thing as the "magic bullet" development
methodology. You need lots of methodologies, and choose the one that fits
the project's needs/constraints.

For example, the Waterfall methodology is no use if the user doesn't know
what they want. For example, if the user is specifying a system for the
first time ever (they have no experience in requesting system development),
then Waterfall is probably unsuitable.

For a project that is low on the business priority list, you probably need a
methodology that will build those parts of the application that can be built
quickly using your RAD tools, and which puts other parts as optional extras
to be done later on (because low priority projects will be time and resource
constrained).

Perhaps you can give us more info on what are trying to develop, and we
could recommend something based on that?

Cheers
Ken

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