The Development Cycle

If every program worked the first time you tried it, the complete development cycle would consist of writing the program, compiling the source code, and running it. Unfortunately, almost every program, no matter how simple, can and will have errors in it. Some errors will cause the compilation to fail, but some will only show up when you run the program.

In fact, every program's development goes through the following stages:

  • Analyze— Decide what the program needs to do.

  • Design— Determine how the program will do what it needs to do.

  • Edit— Create source code based on the design.

  • Compile— Use a compiler to turn the program into a file that your computer can run. The compiler will produce error messages if you have not written ...

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