Document

RAPID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
Parthenopi Konstantinou
ISAM 5635

ABSTRACT

Today, many development organizations are adopting iterative development methodologies emphasized by Rapid Application Development (RAD) cycles.   Unlike waterfall development life cycles, where testing is done at the end of the project, iterative life cycles specify testing at multiple points during development.   It is easy to understand the importance of including system performance analysis and predictive tuning in the process.   Identifying the addressing flows early, especially performance limitations, has as advantage the cuts of the cost to fix them and at the same time minimizes the impact on the project schedule. RAD has been proven to be a valuable software strategy.   However, it is not without pitfalls and risks. RAD incorporates some defects that we need to adjust. Research and capitalization should be invested in order to minimize them and use them as of companies’ advantage.

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(Source from www.credata.com)


INTRODUCTION

Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a new, highly interactive systems development approach that emerged in the 1990s.   RAD is a concept that products can be developed faster and of higher quality.   In addition RAD attempts to address both weaknesses of the structured development methodologies, which are: long development times and the difficulty in understanding a system from a paper-based description.   RAD methodologies adjust the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) phases to get some part of the system developed quickly and into the hands of the users.   What lies beneath this approach is to get the users to better understand the system through interactive and simultaneous revisions, which bring the system closer to what is needed.

How to use RAD
Most RAD methodologies recommend that analysts use special techniques and computer tools to speed up the analysis, design, and implementation phases, such as CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering)...