MBI 630 – Systems Analysis and Design

When reviewing the journals, magazines, web logs, and books about software development, the use of dynamic languages within agile practices are increasing in popularity (Hendrickson, 2007). While publications on dynamic languages may get media attention, do the use of dynamic languages increase the quality of software and the velocity at which it is produced within the Software Lifecycle? The purpose of this paper is to review the available data and determine the answer to this question. First, let us examine the current definition of a dynamic language. According to Wikipedia, ―Dynamic programming language is a term used broadly in computer science to describe a class of high level programming languages that execute at runtime many common behaviors that other languages might perform during compilation, if at all. ‖ (Dynamic programming language, 2007) While the literature is clear that there is no certain definition, there are however agreed upon characteristics that make a software language ―dynamic‖: Although software experts disagree on the exact definition, a dynami