Developing Information Systems

6      PROGRAMMING AND DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES

Peter Thompson

CONTENTS OF THIS CHAPTER

This chapter covers the following topics:

• approaches to development introduced;
• build or buy – bespoke development versus commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS);
• component-based development;
• development methodologies;
• software engineering paradigms;
• the influence of technological advances;
• references and further reading.

APPROACHES TO DEVELOPMENT

Using the term ‘systems development’ today seems somewhat limiting because, in practice, very few systems are actually developed from the ground up. Perhaps a better term would be ‘systems assembly’ (akin to car assembly, as distinct from car manufacture), or maybe even ‘solution development’. The issue here is that the ...