List of software development philosophies explained

This is a list of approaches, styles, methodologies, and philosophies in software development and engineering. It also contains programming paradigms, software development methodologies, software development processes, and single practices, principles, and laws.

Some of the mentioned methods are more relevant to a specific field than another, such as automotive or aerospace.^[1] ^[2] The trend towards agile methods in software engineering is noticeable,^[3] however the need for improved studies on the subject is also paramount.^[4] ^[5] Also note that some of the methods listed might be newer or older or still in use or out-dated, and the research on software design methods is not new and on-going.^[6] ^[7] ^[8] ^[9]

Software development methodologies, guidelines, strategies

Large-scale programming styles

Specification-related paradigms

Comprehensive systems

Rules of thumb, laws, guidelines and principles

300 Rules of Thumb and Nuggets of Wisdom (excerpt from Managing the Unmanageable - Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams^[10] by Mickey W. Mantle, Ron Lichty)
ACID
Big ball of mud
Brooks's law
C++ Core Guidelines^[11] (Stroustrup/Sutter) P1 - P13 Philosophy rules
CAP theorem
Code reuse
Command–query separation (CQS)
Conway's law
Cowboy coding
Do what I mean (DWIM)
Don't repeat yourself (DRY)
Egoless programming
Fail-fast
Gall's law
General Responsibility Assignment Software Patterns (GRASP)
If it ain't broke, don't fix it
Inheritance (OOP)
KISS principle
Law of Demeter, also known as the principle of least knowledge
Law of conservation of complexity, also known as Tesler's Law
Lehman's laws of software evolution
Loose coupling
Minimalism (computing)
Ninety–ninety rule
Open–closed principle
Package principles
Pareto principle
Parkinson's law
Principle of least astonishment (POLA)
Release early, release often
Robustness principle, also known as Postel's law
Rule of least power
SEMAT
Separation of concerns
Separation of mechanism and policy
Single source of truth (SSOT)
Single version of the truth (SVOT)
SOLID (object-oriented design)
There's more than one way to do it
Uniform access principle
Unix philosophy
Worse is better
You aren't gonna need it (YAGNI)

Other

Davis 201 Principles of Software Development^[12]
Don't Make Me Think (Principles of intuitive navigation and information design)^[13]
The Art of Computer Programming (general computer-science masterpiece by Donald E. Knuth)
The Cathedral and the Bazaar - book comparing top-down vs. bottom-up open-source software
The Philosophy of Computer Science
Where's the Theory for Software Engineering?^[14]
The Yo-yo problem

Programming paradigms

Software development methodologies

Agile Unified Process (AUP)
Constructionist design methodology (CDM)
Dynamic systems development method (DSDM)
Extreme programming (XP)
Iterative and incremental development
Kanban
Lean software development
Model-based system engineering (MBSE)
Pair programming
Mob programming
Rapid application development (RAD)
Rational Unified Process (RUP)
Rubber duck debugging
Scrum
Structured systems analysis and design method (SSADM)
Unified Process (UP)

Software development processes

Active-Admin-driven development (AADD)
Behavior-driven development (BDD)
Bug-driven development (BgDD)
Configuration-driven development (CDD)
Readme-driven development (RDD)
Design-driven development (D3)
Domain-driven design (DDD)
Feature-driven development (FDD)
Test-driven development (TDD)
User-centered design (UCD) (User-Driven Development (UDD))
Value-driven design (VDD)
Software review
Software quality assurance

Other materials, books, articles, etc.

Don't Make Me Think (book by Steve Krug about human computer interaction and web usability)

References

Book: Gruszczynski, B.. 2006 IEEE International Conference on Electro/Information Technology . An overview of the current state of software engineering in embedded automotive electronics . May 2006. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4017727. 377–381. 10.1109/EIT.2006.252190. 0-7803-9592-1. 34164454.
Book: Patel. B. K.. Litchfield. V.. Tamanaha. D.. Davis. A.. 1991 IEEE Aerospace Applications Conference Digest . Real time systems/Software methodologies for large aerospace systems . February 1991. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/154537. 2/1–2/9. 10.1109/AERO.1991.154537. 0-87942-686-1. 151614328.
Yau. Stephen S. Jia. Xiaoping. Bae. Doo-Hwan. 1992-05-01. Software design methods for distributed computing systems. Computer Communications. Software aspects of future trends in distributed systems. en. 15. 4. 213–224. 10.1016/0140-3664(92)90104-M. 0140-3664.
Stavru. Stavros. 2014-08-01. A critical examination of recent industrial surveys on agile method usage. Journal of Systems and Software. en. 94. 87–97. 10.1016/j.jss.2014.03.041. 0164-1212.
Dybå. Tore. Dingsøyr. Torgeir. 2008-08-01. Empirical studies of agile software development: A systematic review. Information and Software Technology. en. 50. 9. 833–859. 10.1016/j.infsof.2008.01.006. 2244031 . 0950-5849.
Book: Taylor, P.. Proceedings International Conference on Software Methods and Tools. SMT 2000 . Designerly thinking: What software methodology can learn from design theory . November 2011. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/890426. 107–116. 10.1109/SWMT.2000.890426. 978-0-7695-0903-7. 110041968.
Yau. Stephen S. Jia. Xiaoping. Bae. Doo-Hwan. 1992-05-01. Software design methods for distributed computing systems. Computer Communications. Software aspects of future trends in distributed systems. en. 15. 4. 213–224. 10.1016/0140-3664(92)90104-M. 0140-3664.
Gomaa. Hassan. 1994-05-01. Software design methods for the design of large-scale real-time systems. Journal of Systems and Software. en. 25. 2. 127–146. 10.1016/0164-1212(94)90002-7. 0164-1212.
Budgen. David. July 1995. 'Design models' from software design methods. Design Studies. en. 16. 3. 293–325. 10.1016/0142-694X(95)00001-8. 0142-694X.
Book: Mantle, Mickey W.. Managing the unmanageable : rules, tools, and insights for managing software people and teams. 2020. Ron Lichty. 978-0-13-566763-7. 2nd. Boston. 1137802633.
Web site: C++ Core Guidelines. 2021-04-11. isocpp.github.io.
Book: Davis, Alan Mark.. 201 principles of software development. 1995. McGraw-Hill. 0-07-015840-1. New York. 31814837.
Book: Krug, Steve. Don't make me think, revisited : a common sense approach to Web usability. Bayle, Elisabeth,, Straiger, Aren,, Matcho, Mark. 2014. 978-0-321-96551-6. Third. [San Francisco, California]. 859556499.
Johnson. Pontus. Ekstedt. Mathias. Jacobson. Ivar. 2012. Where's the Theory for Software Engineering?. IEEE Software. 29. 5. 96. 10.1109/MS.2012.127. 0740-7459. 38239662.
Aslett. M. J.. December 1991. An overview of the HOOD method. 1991 IEE Colloquium on an Introduction to Software Design Methodologies (Ref. No: 1991/181). 5/1–5/4.
Book: December 2018. ISO/IEC/IEEE International Standard - Systems and software engineering — Developing information for users in an agile environment. Iso/Iec/IEEE 26515:2018(E). 1–32. 10.1109/IEEESTD.2018.8584455. 978-1-5044-5297-7 .