Program Development steps
The program development steps or phases that we follow a sequence of steps to
develop a program in any programming language.
Generally, the program development steps contains 6 phases, they are as follows
1. Requirements
2. Analysis
3. Design
4. Coding
5. Testing
6. Maintenance
1. Requirements
we define the problem statement and we decide the boundaries of the problem.
Information about the problem must be stated clearly and unambiguously.
we need to understand the problem statement and gather the preliminary
requirements.
Main objective of this phase is to eliminate unimportant aspects and identify the
root problem
2. Analysis
All the factors like Input/output, processing requirement, memory requirements,
error handling, interfacing with other programs have to be taken into
consideration in this stage.
It also determines the required format in which results should be displayed
3. Design
The software developer makes use of tools like algorithms and flowcharts to
develop the design of the program.
o Algorithm
o Flowchart
Algorithm is the list of instructions in a perticular order to solve the problem
Flowcharts are used to get the pictorial representation of the algorithm
4. Coding
Once the design process is complete, converting algorithm to a program by
selecting any one of the high – level languages that is suitable for the problem.
Coding is generally a very small part of the entire program development process
and also a less time consuming activity in reality.
In this process we identify and eliminate all the syntax errors related to spelling,
missing commas, undefined labels etc.
For effective coding some of the guide lines are to be follow:
o Use of meaningful names and labels of variables
o Simple and clear expressions
o Modularity with emphasis on making modules generalized
o Making use of comments and indenting the code properly
o Avoiding jumps in the program to transfer control
5. Testing
The program is tested on a number of suitable test cases.
A test plan of the program has to be done at the stage of the program design
itself.
This ensures a thorough understanding of the specifications.
Running the program several times using different sets of data verifies whether a
program works correctly for every situation provided in the algorithm.
It is always useful to include the maximum and minimum values of all variables
as test data.
6. Maintenance
Updating and correction of the program for changed conditions and field
experience is accounted for in maintenance.
Maintenance becomes essential in following situations:
o Change in specification
o Change in equipment
o Errors which are found during the actual execution of the program
Working with Variables
Serves as temporary storage of data for processing.
Naming Conventions
Name your variables based on the terms of the subject area, so that the variable name
clearly describes its purpose.
A variable name must start with a letter or the underscore character
A variable name cannot start with a number
A variable name can only contain alpha-numeric characters and
underscores (A-z, 0-9, and _ )
Variable names are case-sensitive (age, Age and AGE are three different
variables)
A variable name cannot be any of the C# keywords
Camel case
camelCase is a variable naming convention where the first word is always in lowercase
and every other word starts with a capital letter. The words are also not separated by
spaces, dashes, or underscores. It is also known as dromedaryCase.
Examples: firstName, currentAccountBalance
Snake case
snake_case is a variable naming convention where each word is in lower case, and
separated by underscores. It is also known as pothole_case.
Examples: last_name, annual_earnings
Pascal Case
PascalCase is a variable naming convention where the first letter in every word is
capitalized and the rest is in lowercase. There are also no gaps between each word. It
is also known as UpperCamelCase or StudlyCase. Examples: FirstName, TotalBalance
Identifying Input/Output Variables