Hi Tom, you mentioned BrickRed in your post. Well I was employed with BrickRed. I understand that you want to know basics of software development process. I can also gathered that you have spoken to your friends in BrickRed regarding your query. Though it is not really clear, what exactly you want to know, but I’ll give you a little glimpse of typical process employed by the
BRICKRED.COM.
It cannot be emphasized enough that a detailed and intelligent process is a must if you are developing software. Process means a guideline description of a repeatable procedure that describes the way that your organization develops software. It also defines your organization because it is the process that will be applied to the development of future projects.
Domain Analysis
It is usually the first step in attempting to design a new piece of software. It involves the investigation of the area such as: banking, marketing, retailing, insurance etc., where the software is to be employed.
Know Thy Client
The holy grail of any project, satisfy your client. For that you need to know, what is in his mind regarding his requirements. He is the best person to tell you, what they want. While skilled and experienced software engineers can fill in any incomplete, ambiguous or contradictory information.
Specification
Specification means precisely describing the software to be written in a rigorous way.
Software architecture
The architecture of a software system refers to an abstract representation of that system. Architecture is concerned with making sure the software system will meet the requirements of the product, as well as ensuring that future requirements can be addressed.
Implementation (or coding)
Reducing a design to code may be the most obvious part of the software engineering job, but it is not necessarily the largest portion.
Testing
Testing of parts of software is done by a software engineer to check out any bug or error.
Documentation
An important (and often overlooked) task is documenting the internal design of software for the purpose of future maintenance and enhancement.
In my next posting, I will discuss methodologies adopted to successfully develop and implement software projects. I hope this posting, though not enough by any stretch of imagination should give the beginners a little something.