Systems Development Overview
The programming life cycle:
- Define the purpose of the program
- Design the logic flow
- Create the computer code
- Test the program on all target systems
- Provide technical support, including program documentation
When developing a new computer program or application, the process is similar to the system development life cycle. First, the purpose of the software must be clearly defined. What will the program do? Next, design the logic flow of the program. How will the program react to commands? How will the features of the program work together? Once all the pieces of the program are clearly spelled out, computer programmers write the code to tell the computer what to do. When the preliminary coding is finished, the program is tested. The testing process usually goes through several iterations – finding errors (or "bugs"), fixing them, and then testing again. When the program is finally finished, the final step is to provide technical support to the users of the program, including providing documentation – instructions on how to use the program.
