Agile Approaches

Traditional development approaches emphasized detailed advance planning and a linear progression through the software lifecycle Code late, get it right first time (Really??)

Recent ‘agile’ development approaches emphasize flexible cyclic development with the system evolving towards a solution Code early, fix and improve it as you go along.

This is a very hot topic in Software Engineering circles at the moment, and as with all such developments it has its share of zealots and ideologues!

Is the waterfall lifecycle model really successful in enabling large, complex projects to proceed from start to finish without ever looking back? Advocates of agile approaches contend that these better fit the reality of software development.

However agile programming requires tools that will enable software to change and evolve. Two specific tools provided by modern IDEs that support agile programming are refactoring and testing tools.