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Waterfall Model

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Waterfall Model

(programming)
A software life-cycle or product life-cycle model, described by W. W. Royce in 1970, in which development is supposed to proceed linearly through the phases of requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing (validation), integration and maintenance. The Waterfall Model is considered old-fashioned or simplistic by proponents of object-oriented design which often uses the spiral model instead.

Earlier phases are sometimes called "upstream" and later ones "downstream".

Compare: iterative model.

[W. W. Royce, "Managing the Development of Large Software Systems", Proceedings of IEEE WESCON, August 1970].
This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)
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References in periodicals archive
The Waterfall model [2] [3] is the first applied software development strategy, resembling the designs that were used in other industries.
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The first formal description of the Waterfall model is described by Royce in 1970 [2].
It has its roots in the world of software development, where the software project management community got weary with the inefficiencies and theocracy of the Waterfall Model, which presupposes a fixed, unchanging scope, monolithic development and, finally, one-shot user acceptance testing, where it's inevitable that there be rejects, negotiations, leading to a badly compromised product being shipped out into the marketplace.
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