Software development is the art and science of creating software applications that are effective in performing a particular task. Software developers use various kinds of techniques for developing software application. According to Wikipedia-“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 development involves coding by the developer in which he may use high/low level languages. High level language includes both object oriented as well as procedure oriented languages. In this advanced era of technology, one can not ignore Marketing and Finance functions. Marketing and Finance are the areas which are sometimes ignored while developing software applications. One has to be in contact with interdisciplinary people for making effective software applications.

Software development involves various stages collectively referred to as the software development lifecycle, or SDLC:

• 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

Software is a big program directed at solving a particular problem. Software Development has to be in tune with the demands of corporate requirements. In other words, software applications can not remain isolated from business and its requirements. SDLC or Software Development Life Cycle has to be followed if you want to develop a particular software application successfully. Software applications can be of many kinds and varieties. One kind of software application is library software. PC Optimization is an important category of software application.  And if you are a developer you use a particular language to develop programs and software.  Your hardware is like a carcass in the absence of software applications. Technological revolution could not be brought about without the help of software and software applications are the lifeblood of computer system.

Application software is as important as system software. System software acts as an intermediary between hardware and the user. On the other hand, application software acts as a solution to one user problem or the other. For example MS office suite acts as a one stop solution to your business problems. Ms Word acts as a world class word processor. Similarly, MS Excel acts as a commercial spreadsheet application. Apple applications are different as compared to Microsoft applications. Mac system uses different applications when compared to PCs running with Windows based applications. So broadly, we have two kinds of categories of software applications:

Windows based software applications like Adobe Reader, Snagit Editor, MacAfee, etc.

Mac based software applications: ixi software, QuickTime, etc.

Indian software companies have created history in the area of software development. Now we have software companies located not only in metros but also in tier 2 and tier 3 cities.

0 Comment   |   Posted in Software Development September 02, 2011