Unit 1.3 - Program Design and Development Notes
Unit 1.3 Notes on Program Design and Development
- Use a development process to develop a program
- Design a program and its user interface
- A development process can be ordered and intentional or exploratory in nature
- Common phases when developing a program: investigating and reflecting, designing, prototyping, testing
- Requires refinement and revision based on feedback, testing, and reflection: may require revisiting phases
- Break the project into smaller pieces and make sure each piece works before adding it to the whole
- Investigate to determine requirements, constraints, concerns and interests of customer
- Investigate by: collecting data through surveys, user testing, interviews, direct observations
- Requirements describe how a program functions and may include a description of user interactions that a program should provide
- Design phase that outlines how to accomplish a program’s goal may include: brainstorming, planning/storyboarding, organizing the program into modules and functional components, creation of diagrams, develop testing strategy
- Constantly test your program
- When developing a program, it is important to cite and acknowledge code segments used from either another source or developed collaboratively
- When acknowledging someone else, include the origin of code or authors name in the program documentation
- Team of people usually work on a program by each focusing on different functional components
- Each member’s work should be credited in program documentation
- Sometimes credit is given with comments in the code
- Many developers use code segments, procedures, algorithms made by others who aren’t part of the project so it is important to credit them
- Describe the purpose of a code segment or program by writing documentation
- Program documentation: a written description of the function of a code segment, event, procedure, or program and how it was developed EX: comments (don’t effect how the program runs)
- Should actively document throughout development to help development as well as maintaining correct programs
- Program documentation created to: describe the program, list specifications, describe different parts of the program, list of contributors
- Document process: beginning: list specifications, during: keep track of progress, after: explain overall process
- Documentation improves: programming process efficiency, ability to test and refine program, responding to bugs
- How to comment:
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