Top-Down versus Bottom-Up Approach in Software Design
Decide Which Way You Are Going to Go
When starting to design a new system, you first have to decide how you are going to approach the problem. You have to choose how you are going to split up the whole problem into smaller parts and which thought process would best suit you.
Two common approaches to this are the top-down and bottom-up approaches. The first one basically tells you to start with the whole system and work your way down to smaller parts, while the second one tells you to do the exact opposite. Both are valid, and you should carefully consider which one to use in which situation. In this article, I will dive into these approaches, try top explain their differences, and explore their applications.
Top-Down Approach
Let us start by explaining the actual definitions of the bop-down and bottom-up approach.
The top-down approach, also known as the “divide and conquer” approach, involves designing the overall architecture first and then breaking it down into smaller components.
