How do people develop a software?

Question

What are the basic knowledges for someone to develop a software?

Answer 1

If you're asking on a programmer level, it depends on what type of programmer you are asking about.

As a game developer, you might:
Learn how to write a good story, create story books (draw), learn graphic design, learn physics and calculus or higher.

As a business software developer, you might:
learn about economics and accounting, database management, general software development techniques, learn general business practices.

But, when it comes to a complete software development lifecycle:
For starters, there must be a need or desire for the product. This should then be confirmed with market research. Once market research establishes the likelihood of success, you submit a proposal to investors or a Board of Directors - whomever is in charge of distributing funds. In order to support your request for funding, you can do this step before your proposal, but a consensus must be met on what the necessary top level components of the software should be. Using Pacman as an example: A character should run around a maze trying to avoid some monsters while eating all the food lying around. You develop this idea to the point where implementation can begin: I want a circle for a character that has a triangular shaped mouth. I want.... You also develop your testing scenarios. It is common to do "models" where you don't have a completely functional product, but rather something that you can show people and get ideas from. Once this upper level is established, it is also customary to create a high level functioning product. In the case of Pacman, maybe he just moves around and there's nothing to interact with. Once people are happy with the first segment, you develop the next level of detail. At each new level of detail, the test scenarios are run to make sure nothing has been broken and that new things function as expected. This is repeated until the project has been completed. Depending on the project, it may hit a small target market (group of people) first who will provide feedback of what they like/didn't like. Small changes are made and re-testing is done before general release.

Anyway, that should give you a brief overview. :)

Answer 2

You need to understand logic structures, a computer programming language, and the requirements for what is needed to be programmed.