020. Explain the typical process followed in developing an application using the traditional file processing system.

• A User would come up with an idea. For example, let's say that someone working in sales would think, "Gee, wouldn't it be great if I had a program that would keep track of all my customers, what items they purchased, and things like that?"
• They would go and discuss what they wanted with the Information Systems People (usually a COmmon Business Oriented Language Programmer (COBOL) Programmer), who would come-up with a (as noted, usually a COBOL) program to meet their needs.
• The program would be written. Based on what the user asked for, the programmer would figure out what sort of output the user wanted, what data was needed to get the output, and then design the program to convert the data into the output.
• The program would be delivered to the user. The program would now belong to the user. If changes were needed, the user would have to again go see the programmer, explain the changes, and wait while the programmer worked on them.