A Recursive Approach to Software Development

Abstract

Researchers and practitioners alike agree that the waterfall approach to software development results in poor quality software systems. Unfortunately, the waterfall approach is inherently used in almost all of today’s development efforts resulting in system failures. The problem lies in the forward, linear development effort that produces inconsistent and incorrect specifications, designs, and code artifacts. It is proposed in this paper that a recursive software development process be used as a means of managing the complexity of today’s software systems. The recursive approach has the flexibility needed to perform development activities in any order to ensure that system requirements are met.