Software Development Life Cycle Interview questions

Answer:

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) is the process of developing software through business needs, analysis, design, implementation and maintenance. Software has to go through various phases before it is born which are as follows:

(i)Generating a Concept – A concept comes from the users of the software. For example, a Pizza Hut may need software to sell pizza.

An Indian store may need software to sell its newly arrived movies or grocery. The owner of the company feels that he needs software that would help him in tracking his expenses and income as well as enhance the selling process. This is how the concept is generated. The owner will specifically tell the software company what kind of software he would need. In other words, he will specify his requirements.

(ii) Requirements analysis – After the owner (user) knows his requirements, then it is given to a software team (company) who will analyze the requirement and prepare requirement document that will explain every functionality that are needed by the owner. The requirement document will be the main document for developers, testers and database administrators. In other words, this is the main document that will be referred by everyone. After the requirement documents, other detailed documents many be needed. For example, the architectural design which is a blueprint for the design with the necessary specifications for the hardware, software, people and data resources.

(iii) Development: After the detailed requirement documents (some companies have design documents instead of requirement documents), the developers start writing their code (program) for their modules. On the other hand, the testers in the QA (Quality Assurance) Department start writing Test Plans (one module=1 test plan), test cases and get ready for testing.

(iv) Testing: Once the code (programs) are ready, they are compiled together and to make a build. This build is now tested by the software testers (QA Testers)

(v) Production: After testing, the application (software) goes into production (meaning, it will be handed over to the owner).

(vi) End: And one day, the owner will have say bye to the software either because the business grows and this software does not meet the demand or for some reason, the he does not need the software. That’s the end of it.