Software Engineering and Development Life Cycle

Overview

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The previous part — Coding with Large Language Models — started with a peek into a simple pattern highlighting a step from analysis to coding (Fig. 1).

Fig 1. — In simple projects that are intended for internal use, a simple process from analysis of the problem to coding can be sufficient.

In the part, we focused on how large language models can help us with the concrete coding task, but omitted broader discussion of what software engineering is about. In this part, we’ll discuss the concepts software engineering, software development life cycle, software process models, and software development methodologies. The chapters in this part are as follows.

• Software Engineering is a discipline focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining software applications.

• Software Development Life Cycle describes the key steps involved in the development of a software product.

• Software Process Models outline the broad ways in which the software development life cycle can be organized.

• Software Development Methodologies describe the principles and practices that guide the daily software development.