A2

The project life cycle has four phases within it: Initiation, Planning, Execution and Closure.

The initiation phase is the 1^st phase in the Project life cycle as it is where a project is started up. A project is started up by knowing its objectives, scope, purpose and deliverables that need to be produced. The project team will then need to be chosen and hired, an office for the project is setup and then a review of the project to ensure all is correct and gain approval to continue to the next stage. It is needed in software development to set out a plan of what is being done.

The planning phase is the second of the four phases in the Project life cycle. In this stage, a set of plans are created to help guide the team with instructions and resources through the last two phases of the project.It is important for a software development team to plan their project efficiently and see what is the best route of doing something

During this phase, plans are created to help manage time in the project, cost, quality, change, risk and issues. There are there also to help to manage staff, ensuring suppliers deliver on time and also within the set budget.

In the execution phase the physical project deliverables are built and are presented to the customer to sign off. This phase usually takes the longest time out of the four and also consumes a lot of energy and the most resources. This is where the software development team will test to see that all is working well.

To monitor control in this phase, management processes will need to be implemented. These processes are used to help manage time, cost, quality, change, risks and any issues.

The final phase in the Project life cycle is the closure phase. This is where a project is formally closed and a report is created to analyse the success of a project and report that to the sponsor. The software development team will look here at whether the project was a success and what can be changed for next time

In this stage it is all about handing over deliverables to the customer, passing over the documents to the business, cancelling any supplier contracts, releasing the staff and equipment that are no longer needed and masking the stakeholders aware that the project is complete.

When the project is complete and has been closed off, a Post Implementation Review is undertaken and completed to identify the success and any pointers to take into the next project.

Discuss the use of various software structures and how they fit into the life cycle, consider:

Functions: These fit into the life cycle mainly in the execution stage as the developers will look to see were the functions may be necessary to have a purpose.

Procedures: The procedures may be thought about in the planning stage to plan to code what they will do or what needs to be done.

Classes/Objects: Classes and objects fit into the life cycle in the execution phase as they are implemented here to have a purpose and to act within a program.

Data abstractions: This is the hiding of data so would fit into the life cycle in the project execution as well as it will need to be executed and do its job to ensure that it is hidden away and the access to the particular data is forbidden.

Pre-defined code: This will fit into both the initiation and execution phase as it is already pre-defined so this will already be known in the initiation phase but then it is actually implemented in the execution phase.
Readability: This will fit into the planning and execution phase. The planning phase will show what needs to be done and read so will show that the code needs to be understandable not only now but also in the future. This will then be implemented into the code at the execution phase.

Task 2:

Use these phrases: Annotation, Logical methods, Program structures, Sequencing Selection Iteration, Eliminating repeating or redundant code.

·         Readability – When writing code, it is important to ensure that it is readable for people to go back and look at adapting or fixing that code. If it is all cramped up and not written in a presentable manner then it won’t be able to be fixed without being time-consuming.

·         Comments – It is useful to annotate code whilst writing it so that users can make sense of what the code is and does at a later date. It will also be easier to navigate through it if there was a problem with it. Annotations are used to clearly label a part of a piece of code.

·         Appropriate names for variables – This is used to avoids any confusion whilst coding. An example is if a game had a red ball alongside a number of other coloured balls, it would be very confusing and hard to monitor if the ball was simply called either “ball” or “ball1” for example.

·         Indentation – This is used to show that a piece of code belongs to that above it; so for a loop when a “:” is used, it automatically indents to show that it belongs within the loop. Indentation also makes code look presentable and shows sub sections to code rather than just a long section of primary base code. This is a logical method of coding as it saves time and is easy to look back at how it works.

·         Quality of code e.g. efficiency – Having a good quality of code is useful for making the code make sense in as less code as possible. This is efficiency and it is key to be efficient while coding because it is a long drawn-out process.

·         Reliability – Making code reliable is important because it will work correctly. This also counts for adapting code, if code is taken form previous examples or is taken from elsewhere, it is important that it is from a reliable source so that it will work.

·         Robustness - Having robust code allows a system or a computer to handle any errors in code and still execute it like there were no errors. This is useful for large amounts of code because it could take a long time to identify any errors within a piece of code.

·         Usability – It is useful to have code that is easy to use because it ensures that it can be looked backed upon if it needs to be edited as it may have a function to it. This code may also be used for other things so it may be copied and inserted somewhere else. This means that is should be able to be used by someone else even if they have not coded it.

·         Portability – The portability of code is how well it can be transferred from a computer environment to another. The code may well be transferred with no problems but when it is opens or put into practice t may fail. It is important to always ensure that it can be supported on another operating system or to wherever it is being transferred to.

·         Maintainability – The reason to maintain important code is to avoid any updates to it or the programmes that they are run on deleting them or changing what the code does. If the code is changed and not maintained it would be useless.

Explain in detail why the following terms are important when programming:

Debugging: A program needs to be debugged when it doesn't work properly. Finding any mistakes in the code can be hard at times so it is time-consuming to try to find what the problem is. Once this problem has been found then the program will work properly. It is important to be able to debug code because it allows any form of program to be able to work whether it be a game, a webpage or anything that requires code.

Team working: Working as a team whilst programming is important as it allows a program do be finished and worked on quickly and efficiently.  This also helps generate more and creative ideas which could ultimately build a better program than what would have been created. Teamwork also brings a group together as friends and individuals can work better as a team.

Updating: Updating code regularly is important while programming because the current code may become out-dated and the function of the code may have changed and cause a bug in the program. Also updating may introduce new code which could bring in brand new code that could be more useful than what is currently available