I never knew that we have so many software development methods that exist until I read some stuff today. If you had asked me yesterday I would have said:

1. Waterfall ---- thats what I learnt in my first few months at TCS.

2. Spiral --- the diagram when I first saw looked confusing, but thats what I do mostly these days.

3. Extreme programming --- I had spent some time with a start up. Definitely productive with so less management interference. You were almost always the boss but of an extremely small team and which is sometimes just you.

The others which are interesting to know and are formal methods are:

1. Structured Programming Development -- everything is structured, disciplined.

2. Cleanroom -- strong focus towards defect prevention. Quality is though design+coding and not testing.

3. Iterative development -- I dont know how this is different from the Spiral method.

4. Prototyping --- do prototyping, go to user, re-prototype until acceptable. Sounds like RnD project to me.

5. Modified Prototype Model --- Like web-page maintenance. Start simple, keep on modifying based on user needs.

6. Rapid Application Development --- No time, just do it.

7. Joint Analysis Development --- Developers work closely with end-users to develop the software.

8. Exploratory model --- Requirements not known initially, but lets start the project and we will see what is needed.

That makes eleven Software Development models. Woow!

Happy Modelling.//