When it comes to developing code for any purpose, it can be narrowed down to simple trial and error with your coding, but for more efficient coding, you're going to want a certain method of development that is going to suit your current situation, each method has its own weaknesses and benefits towards the project you're working on and your environment.
The method in which you develop your code is going to come down to what situation you're in and the resources you have to work with. Out of the several methods that you can apply towards your development there a few set and stone ones that are the most important to be familiar with, those being
There are obviously more specific methods of programming but generally they tend to be loosely based around one of these 3, as these are essentially The Big 3 methods that you're likely to make use of once in your life
Agile development is the method where your development is done in several stages, with intense collaboration between your users in each stage, constantly changing and adapting your plans after. there are 4 main values towards agile development, which are:
This method of development is most likely used for game development, where the developers recieve feedback from alpha players and their own play testers, allowing for constant changes to mechanics and features that affect the user's overall experience, which also makes sure that the final product is more likely to be better tailored towards the intended users
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Rapid Development is where you quickly create prototypes and getting as much feedback as fast as possible over multiple periods where you can improve upon your code, until you can finally reach a final version that is much higher in quality than the previous versions.
Rapid development ensures the fastest development time possible with your team, as you're constantly updating the code throughout the development process, working on every aspect of the code simultaneously, the danger with this is that you have a higher chance of running into bugs and errors as the quicker development time is directly linked towards and increased possible chance of bugs and errors, which may reduce the overall positive experience for a new user, which in turn reduces your overall usercount down the line
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Waterfall development is when you break down each task into a linear sequence of work, working on one aspect of the code at a time, with each subsequent phase continuing depending on the results of the last phase, this works well with smaller teams of development, and works better to allow for safer and more effective code.
With waterfall development, having the ability to work on each section individually allows for you to ensure the best and most efficient code, as each subsequent section of the code is directly linked towards the last, and is written according to the last section of the code, which reduces your overall chances of running into errors, and bugs, the only significant drawback towards this is the significantly increased time of production, as you'd be working on each section one at a time, and that directly increases the cost of production, and increases the amount of money you'd need to mak from your software in order to rake in a profit.