Looking for a book on the software development life cycle.

[Cabbit]

Hey folks i am looking for a book on the software development life cycle, going though things such as writing and understanding the documentation such as use case models, analysis, design, testing.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

[Cromulent]

You could try reading "The Mythical Man-Month".

[Sayer]

Oh, its such fun to find out your professional programming job is managed in the exact worst way possible (e.g. Waterfall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model) development). I already knew there was trouble when I found out they still use CVS.

Right now I'd really like to be able to commit only a small part of a big XML-based config file, but I can't since they are still on CVS. Git or Mercurial would be a godsend right now. *sigh*

[jpyc7]

Oh, its such fun to find out your professional programming job is managed in the exact worst way possible (e.g. Waterfall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model) development). I already knew there was trouble when I found out they still use CVS.

Right now I'd really like to be able to commit only a small part of a big XML-based config file, but I can't since they are still on CVS. Git or Mercurial would be a godsend right now. *sigh*

Well, I interviewed a guy a few months ago who used ad-hoc backup (i.e. when he remembered or decided it was time). At least he was aware of what version control systems were, but his company didn't sound like they imposed any rigor on his projects. (It was a big company, so I think other departments were probably following some engineering practices.)

[Cabbit]

Well what i am looking for is a book that will take me though the writing of the documentation for software development as i will be starting 3rd year uni on the 14th of September.

Up until now in college i have been pulling it together on a last minute using web templates and that is just not how i want to go though university as i do want to have a better understanding of what i am writing than just throwing together the analysis, design, testing and evaluation documents.

You know going over documents like the Requirements Specification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Requirements_Specification), i can write one but i want to know how to write a better one.

[gwynevans]

I'd suggest one of these author's ones - http://www.stevemcconnell.com/books.htm and reading the articles here - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000035.html

[zippyfly]

Can someone please quickly summarize the last 10 or so years of software development best practices? What I mean is, just a few sentences will do. Such as "Eventually we discovered CVS sucked and so we moved onto using XYZ."

Because the last time I looked into this, CVS was the bomb, and now I am hearing about this "Agile" thing. There was also this "Extreme Programming" meme also a few years back. I have no idea of these are the same thing or what.

Also, is there a difference between the programing philosophy versus the methodology? Such as, the philosophy being incremental improvements, and then the methodology to manage version control being something else?

Thanks.

[GorillaPaws]

As far as version control goes, I think you'll find that Subversion, GIT and Mercurial are the most popular these days. All have their advantages/disadvantages and it really comes down to personal preference.

[chown33]

Can someone please quickly summarize the last 10 or so years of software development best practices? What I mean is, just a few sentences will do. Such as "Eventually we discovered CVS sucked and so we moved onto using XYZ."

Because the last time I looked into this, CVS was the bomb, and now I am hearing about this "Agile" thing. There was also this "Extreme Programming" meme also a few years back. I have no idea of these are the same thing or what.

Also, is there a difference between the programing philosophy versus the methodology? Such as, the philosophy being incremental improvements, and then the methodology to manage version control being something else?

Thanks.

You should visit Wikipedia and enter some search terms like Extreme Programming or Agile Programming or CVS or Version Control. The Wikipedia articles are fairly good on such subjects. The articles also have links to other material, such as agile programming websites.

If searching Wikipedia is too much trouble, you can enter the search terms Wikipedia Agile Programming or Wikipedia Extreme Programming into the Google search box. Adding "Wikipedia" brings its results up to the top of the hits.

[zippyfly]

Thanks. It's not actually that I am too lazy to Google myself, but I wasn't sure about which keywords to Google with. So I guess Extreme and Agile are still the right keywords to use.

[Cabbit]

Thanks for the help guys i bought a bunch of books including "the mythical man month" which i am reading now.

[weg]

I already knew there was trouble when I found out they still use CVS.

Right now I'd really like to be able to commit only a small part of a big XML-based config file, but I can't since they are still on CVS. Git or Mercurial would be a godsend right now. *sigh*

I know it's tedious, but make a backup copy of your current local copy of the file, retrieve the version of the file that's currently in CVS, patch it, and check it in again. Then restore your local copy.