Program Development Life Cycle
PDLC is a systematic approach to developing programs. It breaks the job of program development into manageable sub-jobs in such a manner that each sub-job is completed sequentially before moving on to the next job. These sub-jobs are better known as steps of the programming lifecycle. The program development lifecycle contained 7 steps. These are
1. Problem Definition/Analysis
2. Program Debugging
3. Algorithm Development and Flow Charting
4. Program Coding
5. Debugging And Compilation
6. Program Testing
7. Implementation And Documentation
Problem Definition
This is the very first step to be followed during the development of a program. In this phase, the internal logic of the program is planned the analysis phase is generally performed by program analytes, he must know what is the output requirement of the program and what type of input he will be supplied.
Program Designing
Once the problem is clearly understood its solution process is designed and all alternatives are consulted. All types of input format, output format, and codes are designed along with the group of programmers or sub-programmers to complete the task. Structure approaches like top-down approach bottom-up approach etc are used in it.
Algorithm Development and Flowcharting
Once the designing phase is over, the programmer prepares the logical design of the problem for programming using various program designing tools like algorithms, flow charts, pseudocode, decision tables, chart, etc. The main job in this step is to prepare an effective algorithm for the program. Flow chart making and other tools are used as alternative steps.
Program Coding
After developing the desired logic of the sequence of step to develop a program developers reaches the coding stage. In the coding stage, the algorithm is converted into a step-by-step solution procedure called a program using any selected programming language and the program instruction is coded as per the syntax of the chosen language.
Debugging and Compilation
After the coding of the desired logic of the program is done in the selected programming language the program is checked for all kinds of syntax errors, logical errors, and executable errors and removed it. The process of removing all kinds of errors from the program is called debugging.
The compilation is a process of converting the source program (a program in a high-level language) into an object program (a program in machine language) because the high-level language is not understandable by the machine.
Program Testing
After the removal of the syntax error, the program will execute. However, the output may not be correct this is because of a logical error in the program, logical error is a mistake that the programmer made during the designing of the solution to the problem so the program we tested to remove the error.
Implementation and Documentation
This phase contains three major jobs of software development and they are installations of software, maintenance, and documentation. This is the final phase of the program development life cycle.
