Once an idea has been formalized it is time to actually start doing something to get from idea to software product. This process normally takes place in the form of steps where one step leads to another and any given step can only be reached by completing the step in front of it. This process is called the Software Development Life Cycle ( ISO 12207 )

The steps never ends and every time the "Assess Needs & Design Specifications" steps are reached, a new major version of the software is being worked on and therefore the software goes through "life cycles" or ages in it's development.

Software development has experienced allot of evolutions throughout the years in order to  improve productivity and quality of the software products. There are many models to follow when creating software products with my favorite being the Iterative development model.

This basically means you identify 4 phases during each life cycle with a certain amount of functionality having to be delivered within a specific time frame. Each major version of the software product will go through this iterative development process.

Taking into account that there will be bugs and errors that will have to be sorted out during the Support & Maintenance steps it is clear that no software product launched will be without bugs and errors.

Coming back to Farm Manager I will go through each step of the SDLC in the coming months using Farm Manager as a guide to developing software products.