What Are the Different Types of Software Development?

Software development is an integral part of the age we live in. Often referred to as ‘the Digital Age,’ we rely on computers and software for just about all areas of our daily lives. For start-ups and small, growing businesses the right software is essential. It needs to be sufficient for the business at the start-up point and scalable beyond that. This is why it is sensible to engage a business offering software development services for start-ups that may tailor a package to your specific needs. So, what are the different types of software development?

This is a question that can be answered in different ways. To begin with, there are two types of software development methodologies, these being:

• Waterfall which is the traditional method in which the development team follows a sequential route to the finished product.
• Agile which is a more modern approach that sees different teams working in tandem on different areas of the project in incremental stages.

Agile is rapidly being implemented across the industry as it tends to provide greater customer satisfaction and a faster route towards completion.

In addition to the two above development processes, there are different areas of software development. The following list displays the most often seen:

• Web development
• Mobile development
• Data science
• Application development
• Back-end development
• Software tools development
• API development
• Embedded systems development
• Security software development
• Cloud computing

We won’t go into detail about each one, suffice to say that while web development is focused on websites, mobile and application development are clearly two different areas of software development. Now let’s talk about the skills that a software developer needs to be competent with. Now let’s talk about the skills that a web developer vs software developer needs to be competent with.

Important Software Development Skills

There are some specific skills that software developers need to possess and as with the early days of computers, understanding the many different programming languages is certainly one. Each language has a specific use in different areas, and a skilled developer will know which to use in each different application.

In agile, there is also the element of roles that are more defined. The agile developer has a greater influence on how the project progresses and needs to understand the tools that are essential to such a job. The four main skills, in addition to understanding how software and computers work, are:

• Communication
• Patience
• Adaptability
• Empathy

Software development is rarely a one-person job and takes time to reach a conclusion, hence the ability to perform in the above four areas. We’ll finish with a brief look at the usual elements of a software development process.

Software Development Process

Software development begins with an idea or a commission. The idea is then brainstormed by a team of experienced developers. The roles are defined, and the methodology is chosen for development. Each team then completes their section of the code and programming to set criteria. These sections are put together. Once complete, a rigorous testing routine is implemented prior to the software launch.

For smaller businesses and start-ups, it is clear that the software development process is an expensive and time-consuming one to perform in-house, and it is recommended that such businesses use a software development company to save money and time and to arrive at a working and scalable result.