Introduction to Software Development

2.1 Software Development

We have seen in our previous discussion that software engineering is nothing but a disciplined approach to develop software. Now we will look at some of the activities involved in the course of software  development. The activities involved in software development can broadly be divided into two major  categories first is construction and second is management. The construction activities are those that are directly related to the construction or development of the software. While the management activities are those that complement the process of construction in order to perform construction activities smoothly and effectively. A greater detail of the activities involved in the construction and management categories is presented below.

Construction

The construction activities are those that directly related to the development of software,
e.g. gathering the requirements of the software, develop design, implement and test the
software etc. Some of the major construction activities are listed below.

• Requirement Gathering
• Design Development
• Coding
• Testing

Management

Management activities are kind of umbrella activities that are used to smoothly and
successfully perform the construction activities e.g. project planning, software quality
assurance etc. Some of the major management activities are listed below.

• Project Planning and Management
• Configuration Management
• Software Quality Assurance
• Installation and Training 

As we have said earlier that management activities are kind of umbrella activities that surround the construction activities so that the construction process may proceed smoothly. This fact is empathized in the figure 1. The figure shows that construction is surrounded by management activities. That is, all construction activities are governed by certain processes and rules. These processes and rules are related to the management of the construction activities and not the construction itself.

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In the next we will see Software Engineering Framework