Software development is a whole lot of concept today. It’s not merely programming for an application. It’s more than that right from planning the application to developing it and later maintaining it. People may think software development as the easiest job since it’s only coding, software application development companies today take charge of all their clients needs and then make suggestions and finalize the agenda before getting into actual development.
Developing software is basically automating the program that needs manual attention. This sums up the concept of all developments running out today. Be it mobile app development, web application development, the inclusion of latest trends like chatbots, AI, IoT, Machine learning all is possible only because some software developers are working on it.
In today's blog, we will take through the journey of software application development and explain how actually software development takes place and what are the overall techniques followed in order to get software developed.
1. Plan the Development
The basic step in software development is to plan the cycle. It's important since it creates the base of the next procedures to follow for developers. Software development companies ensure that planning is done based on the available resources, current market status, and user’s requirements. Certain points that are discussed before going on to the next stage are:
- Strategic choices: It is all about how software is set up. Planning like where should it be hosted and its architecture. These are one-time decisions that define long-term insinuations.
- Investment: Investment planning is huge as it decides the number of technical inclusions in software application development. The higher the investment, the better application development would be planned and vice versa.
- Technologies: This is another decision that has to be planned beforehand as there are many trends that can be worked on in the application development. However, the business has to be very particular about technologies inclusion as it may increase the cost of software development.
- Roadmap: Planning the application development includes a plan for the unexpected challenges, create a backup plan ready so that the development does not get hampered due to any unavoidable circumstances.
2. Design
After understanding the client's requirements, collating the required data and information, chalking out the plan for development, the next step is to get involved with the design of the software application. It's a mandatory step that assists software application developers in designing the application. It explicates how exactly the application is going to be developed in the code before the actual code is written.
By having the design, basically, blueprint architecture of the application development, different methodologies can be handled in multiple situations easily and smartly. This minimizes any kind of unwanted delay in the development of the application and final delivery to the clients. Few developers who follow the protocol of the agile development need not plan the design of the code and they can directly jump to writing the code.
3. Writing Code
The most important phase comes to when the developers start with writing code for the application. Experts advise that developers should start with writing test codes for the functions first and then later get into writing the entire code. This is required in order to check the bugs, errors or any kind of lags that can hamper the code functioning later. A small patch of test code ensures that developers are making the right move in code writing and continue with it.
Developers should get into the habit of starting small and going with Test Driven Development (TDD). This is specifically required when a new project is being developed.
4. Testing & Deployment
Last but not least is the testing of the application codes. Once developers complete the task of writing code, it is then needed to run and test the codes to ensure that the application is bug-free, error-free and performs its course of action speedily. A software development company can follow different methodologies for testing before releasing it to end users.
Many leading companies often go with A/B testing practices into the software development life cycle. This is done to ensure that the development teams receive feedback from users in the development process. Once the code is tested, it's ready for deployment. The final and finished software is configured on a server, placed into the app store, or made accessible to users in some other way for use.
Conclusion
Software development is the core of all kind of application development today. Business seeks expert software development companies that fulfill their requirements and create an application that meets users’ expectations. It is important for a custom software development company to know what they are doing and how they should plan so that they can deliver what their clients expect.
The entire process of software development cycle needs to be diligently followed starting from planning to deploying the software on the server and then only it is called a successful software development procedure.
