In this article, we will talk about one of the most important topics of Software Engineering — Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) in a simplified manner which is easy to learn and understand.
What is SDLC?
SDLC specifies the tasks required at various stages by a software engineer or developer. The SDLC is a set of steps which is required to make a product. To build a product, various phases of SDLC are followed
The phases of SDLC are:
- Planning and Requirement analysis
- This is the first step of SDLC
- In this phase, we need to know the requirements of the customer
- We ask the client on what type of software needs to be developed
- The requirements can be gathered in form of surveys, group discussions, personal interactions, Google forms, questionnaires, etc.
- This step is very important as we need to know what software the user wants
2. Feasibility study
- This is the second step of SDLC
- According to the requirements gathered from the user, we check if all those requirements can be fulfilled as per the software or not
- In this, we classify all the requirements as feasible and non feasible
- We check all the requirements and see if any requirement clashes with others
- After this step, the developer gets an idea what features to put together
3. Designing the software
- This represents the third step of SDLC
- After understanding the requirements and how can they be combined, it’s time to work on the design of the product
- In this step, we work on the UI/UX of the application or software
- In this, we see how the software or application should look like
- The design of the application must be user friendly and appealing
4. Implementation of the software
- This represents the fourth step of SDLC
- After setting the layout of the application or software we now code the application
- In this phase, we need to first choose a programming language in which the software can be coded
- Then we choose for a text editor or software in which we build our entire product
- The code should be modular and easy to understand by rest of the team members who are working on the implementation front
- At this stage, the frontend, backend and middleware layers are coded
5. Testing the software
- This is the fifth step of SDLC
- After building the application, it’s time to test the application
- In this phase, we try to remove any kind of bugs or errors
- This phase is carried out by software testers
- They apply different techniques for testing the software
- It is one of the most crucial steps
- This is done so that the developed application can be error free and can run smoothly
6. Deployment of the software
- This is the sixth step of SDLC
- After building the software and correcting all the errors, it is time to publish the software
- In this stage, we publish the software live so that it can be accessed by everyone
- At this stage, the application is ready to be used by different people
- In this stage, we can also gather the feedback received from other people using the product
7. Software maintenance
- This is the last stage of the SDLC life cycle
- In this phase, we maintain the application that is already running
- In this, the application is already in a used state so we keep on doing different updates so that the software never crashes or slows down
- In this we basically work on the feedback which we receive in the previous stages
Hope this article helps readers understand SDLC in a simple manner.