Talk:Software development process: Difference between revisions

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Hm, what is the relationship bewteen [[software development process]] and [[project lifecycle]]? Much duplication between these pages, needs to be clarified.

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Also, what is relationship between [[methodology]] and [[software development process]]?

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It all comes down to definition. Project lifecycle is to with project, not necessarily software. And software is often only one component of a system (requirements definition, analysis, design, hardware, network infrastructure, disaster recovery, operations manuals, user manuals, marketing, training, etc etc). And a methodology can apply to any one or any subset of all these. Or to the project. You could even have a project to develop a methodology. We have different words for different things! Luckily. [[User:Psb777|Paul Beardsell]] 16:45, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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== System/Software Design/Development Process/Life/Cycle Merger Discussion ==

== Agile, Waterfall, Spiral – Frameworks or Models rather than Methodologies ==

Here is the single point of discussion for the merger of the following articles with Google results:

# "[[Software development process]]" - 912,000 results

# "[[Project lifecycle]]" - 383,000 results

# "[[Software development life cycle]]" - 300,000 results

# "[[Software development cycle]]" - 160,000 results

# "[[System Development Life Cycle]]" - 112,000 results

# "[[Systems development life cycle]]" - 105,000 results

# "[[System Design Life Cycle]]" - 925 results

How shall we deal with them? -- [[User:Zondor|Zondor]] 03:37, 22 October 2005 (UTC) -- [[User:Zondor|Zondor]] 03:48, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

* Any objections to having separate [[Software_development_process]] and [[System_Development_Life_Cycle]] that have explicit reference to each other, and merge / redirect the rest? &mdash;<span class="Dlwl">[[User:Dlwl|<span style="font-family: monospace; font-variant: small-caps;">Dlwl</span>]]&rarr;[[User talk:Dlwl|<span style="color: #070;">&#x9F9C;</span>]]</span> 22:46, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't feel comfortable calling Agile, Waterfall and even Spiral a "methodology". These approaches of software development are rather frameworks or models than methodologies. [[Agile software development|Agile]] makes that particularly clear: It provides a number of values, philosophies and principles, and ''advocates'' certain development approaches, but nonetheless ''doesn't prescribe'' (or dictate) them in a way that a methodology such as [[Scrum (software development)|Scrum]] does. If there are no objections, I'd like to change that in the article. – [[User:invenio|invenio]] <span style="font-size:1.5ex; position:relative; bottom:1ex;">[[User talk:Invenio|t]]</span><span style="font-size:1.5ex; position:relative; right:.8ex; top:0.8ex;">[[Special:Contributions/Invenio|c]]</span> 05:57, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

* I think that is a great idea. [[User:Limbo socrates|Limbo socrates]] 15:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Sadly, nobody changed the article. And they certainly aren't "methodologies" [[Methodology|by Wikipedia's definition of the term]]. They're methods.

* What about simply rolling the above list up from the bottom? Redirect the last to the previous, appending anything useful; lather rinse repeat.... [[User:Limbo socrates|Limbo socrates]] 18:31, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[[User:Gypsydave5|Gypsydave5]] ([[User talk:Gypsydave5|talk]]) 21:26, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

* It's an excellent idea! Why not? What wouldn't be good about it? [[User:JavaJake|Jake]] 16:48, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I suggest that the ISO/IEC definition of "methodology" should be our reference definition for improvements on this article. see [https://www.iso.org/obp/ui#iso:std:iso-iec:24744:ed-2:v1:en ISO 24744 - Preview]

--[[User:Dobinator|Dobinator]] ([[User talk:Dobinator|talk]]) 09:20, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

#== "[[Software development lifeis cycle]]"not -a 300,000compound resultsword ==

My edit summary was incorrect, but this is about software development, which is not a compound word. A discussion should be undertaken before assumptions like this are made again. [[User:Walter Görlitz|Walter Görlitz]] ([[User talk:Walter Görlitz|talk]]) 14:29, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

== Extreme programming "other than agile"? ==

The following paragraph describes extreme programming as "other than agile", but extreme programming is widely (also according to Wikipedia) regarded as a type of agile software development.

"Most modern development processes can be vaguely described as agile. Other methodologies include waterfall, prototyping, iterative and incremental development, spiral development, rapid application development, and extreme programming." [[User:Olaeld|Olaeld]] ([[User talk:Olaeld|talk]]) 08:59, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

== Process is not the same as lifecycle ==

The article starts with "a software development process or software development life cycle (SDLC) is ..." which clearly conflates the two terms. They are highly related, yes, but not the same.

The lifecycle is a description of what happens during the life of a software thing. A process, a formal process, is the self-imposed, agreed upon way to go about creating and maintaining a software thing. The lifecycle is more natural (as natural as software gets) and process is more artificial -- something developers self-impose onto themself in order to create/maintain the software ... throughout its lifecycle. One more subtlety: even if there is no agreed upon process or in spite of an agreed upon process (!), there is still a process that occurs; an ad hoc process. The article should not gloss over (conflate) these different aspects. This article seems focused only on formal process; giving the reader a false impression. [[User:Stevebroshar|Stevebroshar]] ([[User talk:Stevebroshar|talk]]) 11:24, 25 July 2025 (UTC)