Software Engineering

Software development (also known as application development, software design, designing software, software application development, enterprise application development, or platform development[1]) 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.[2] Therefore, software development may include research, new development, prototyping, modification, reuse, re-engineering, maintenance, or any other activities that result in software products.[3]

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.

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:

Market research

Gathering requirements for the proposed business solution

Analyzing the problem

Devising a plan or design for the software-based solution

Implementation (coding) of the software

Testing the software

Deployment

Maintenance and bug fixing