Can you explain what is meant by the software development life cycle?

The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a sequence of phases that occur during the creation and maintenance of a software product. The goal of SDLC is to ensure the quality, timely, and efficient release of software.

Main phases of the development life cycle:

1. Requirements gathering and analysis — determining what exactly users and the customer need.
2. Design — creating the architecture and design of the system.
3. Development (coding) — writing the source code.
4. Testing — verifying functionality, finding and fixing bugs.
5. Deployment — releasing the product into the operational environment.
6. Support and maintenance — fixing bugs, updates, improvements.

In different methodologies (Waterfall, Agile, DevOps), these phases may have different sequences and recur cyclically. It is important that SDLC helps structure the development process and manage quality.