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A Comparison of Software Development Methodologies

Reed Sorensen, Software Technology Support Center

http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/1995/01/Comparis.asp

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Purpose and Scope
This article introduces and compares software development methodologies. This information will help you recognize which methodologies may be best suited for use in various situations. The target audience is all personnel involved in software development for the DoD. No attempt has been made to cover methodologies that are most applicable to smaller projects that can be accomplished by five or fewer software engineers. You may learn about several of these in [10]. Since the intended readers should consider government software standards in their use of methodologies, background on these standards is included.
Terminology
For the purposes of this discussion, Table 1 categorizes software development models and techniques.
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|Software Development Models(2) |
|Waterfall |
|Incremental |
|Spiral |
|Software Development Techniques |
|Prototype |
|Cleanroom |
|Object-Oriented |
|Table 1: Software Development Models and Techniques.(1) |

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A methodology is composed of one of the software development models used in conjunction with one or more techniques, i.e., methodology = model + technique(s). The techniques of prototyping, cleanroom, and object-oriented are ways to implement the waterfall,