Program Development Life Cycle
When we want to develop a program using
any programming language, we follow a
sequence of steps. These steps are called
phases in program development. The
program development life cycle is a set of
steps or phases that are used to develop a
program in any programming language.
Generally, the program development life
cycle contains 6 phases, they are as
follows….
Problem Definition
Problem Analysis
Algorithm Development
Coding & Documentation
Testing & Debugging
Maintenance
1. Problem Definition
In this phase, we define the problem
statement and we decide the
boundaries of the problem. In this
phase we need to understand the
problem statement, what is our
requirement, what should be the
output of the problem solution.
These are defined in this first phase
of the program development life
cycle.
2. Problem Analysis
In phase 2, we determine the
requirements like variables,
functions, etc. to solve the problem.
That means we gather the required
resources to solve the problem
defined in the problem definition
phase. We also determine the
bounds of the solution.
3. Algorithm Development
During this phase, we develop a step
by step procedure to solve the
problem using the specification given
in the previous phase. This phase is
very important for program
development. That means we write
the solution in step by step
statements.
4. Coding & Documentation
This phase uses a programming
language to write or implement the
actual programming instructions for
the steps defined in the previous
phase. In this phase, we construct
the actual program. That means we
write the program to solve the given
problem using programming
languages like C, C++, Java, etc.,
5. Testing & Debugging
During this phase, we check whether
the code written in the previous step
is solving the specified problem or
not. That means we test the program
whether it is solving the problem for
various input data values or not. We
also test whether it is providing the
desired output or not.
6. Maintenance
During this phase, the program is
actively used by the users. If any
enhancements found in this phase,
all the phases are to be repeated to
make the enhancements. That
means in this phase, the solution
(program) is used by the end-user. If
the user encounters any problem or
wants any enhancement, then we
need to repeat all the phases from
the starting, so that the encountered
problem is solved or enhancement is
added.