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Ask HN: How do you begin the process of developing a web application?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you begin the process of developing a web application?

#31

Post by tptacek »

jacquesm wrote: post #28
tptacek wrote: post #27

Sinatra, Haml, Blueprint, Sass, jQ. I have a template that does login, tabs, and layout. I sketch in terms of "ghetto REST"; GET /foo, GET/POST /foo/new, GET /foo/1, GET/POST /foo/1/edit, POST /foo/1/delete. I write handlers before I write markup. I write the same %ul#foos // - @foos.each do |foo| markup for every feature I start. Ditto the edit form. Prune down, customize, work out page flows (which is easy once I h…

> But then, I came to web dev from 10+ years of Unix commandline dev. Same here, and I'm beginning to think that that is slowly becoming a handicap rather than an advantage.

Meh. I feel like I get shit done. I've seen a lot of very "professional" web code (note "day job"), and I think my stuff stands up OK.

If I was 22 years old and trying to impress YC with a demo, or launching in front of the mass market with only my own design skills and no cash for designers, I'd be worried that my front-end skills were hurting me. But after a couple years of contact with customers and prospects: front-end is definitely not what's hurting us.

There are 3 other devs on my team, and while I've been convicted for a while of the idea that we need to hire someone crazy excellent with jQ, we're all former backend people. I think we get things done just fine.

I don't have a "methodology" so much as I have a semiconscious bias towards a process that keeps me typing and doesn't give me a lot of opportunities to stop and noodle --- at least not until I have so much traction that dropping things would be painful.

I know (especially from reading the threads here) that most front-end people have a definite preferencing for designing and wireframing up front. They're probably right. But I don't find refactoring and redesigning to be so painful that it outweighs the inertia I'm fighting when I first start a project. I need to fight past the inertia before I can profitably spend energy on design.

Re: Ask HN: How do you begin the process of developing a web application?

#32

Post by [deleted] »

chaosmachine wrote: post #9
l4u wrote: post #3

1. idea 2. google the idea 3. html mockup 4. code

Or, my favorite: 1. idea x 2. google idea x, find nothing 3. spend 2 weeks working on it 4. realize your idea isn't actually x, but more like y. 5. google y, find a bunch of people have already implemented it.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do you begin the process of developing a web application?

#33

Post by jacquesm »

tptacek wrote: post #31
jacquesm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then, I came to web dev from 10+ years of Unix commandline dev. Same here, and I'm beginning to think that that is slowly becoming a handicap rather than an advantage.

Meh. I feel like I get shit done. I've seen a lot of very "professional" web code (note "day job"), and I think my stuff stands up OK. If I was 22 years old and trying to impress YC with a demo, or launching in front of the mass market with only my own design skills and no cash for designers, I'd be worried that my front-end skills were hurting me. But after a couple years of contact with customers and prospects: fro…

s/convicted/convinced/g ;)

Re: Ask HN: How do you begin the process of developing a web application?

#34

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #33
tptacek wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. I feel like I get shit done. I've seen a lot of very "professional" web code (note "day job"), and I think my stuff stands up OK. If I was 22 years old and trying to impress YC with a demo, or launching in front of the mass market with only my own design skills and no cash for designers, I'd be worried that my front-end skills were hurting me. But after a couple years of contact with customers and prospects: fro…

s/convicted/convinced/g ;)

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do you begin the process of developing a web application?

#35

Post by jackqu7 »

In terms of starting actual development, rather than the whole process from conception onwards:

1. Define DB schema

2. Define URLs. I find this is the best way to figure out what bits I actually need to write

3. Solve any difficult/tricky bits first, even if just as a proof of concept

4. Implement the rest

Re: Ask HN: How do you begin the process of developing a web application?

#37

Post by crazyjimbo »

Figure out how to do the bit I don't know how to do. The rest of the application is mostly just stuff I know how to do and only need to make sure I do properly.

Figuring out how to do something is always more exciting to me than actually coding it, although normally the two can't be separated. Sometimes I need to implement a minimal framework first in order to have a setting to solve the problem.

Re: Ask HN: How do you begin the process of developing a web application?

#38

Post by kentf »

Check your ego at the door. Do some sketches. Have some conversations with friends and other people about the idea. Focus on initial reactions and gut feelings. Sleep on it. Wait a week. See if it's exciting after a week. Do some more paper prototypes. Sleep on it. Wait a week. Compare both sets of sketches. Focus on common elements. Write something down. Get advise from domain experts. Sleep on it. Wait a week. Have some potential users do some sketches. Compare with your sketches. Focus on common elements. Sketch some more. Learn Ruby or Python. If you don't know HTML / CSS use Photoshop and send it to a company like XHTMLIZED. Use Rails or Django. Host it in the Cloud, preferably with Engine Yard or Heroku. Use MySQL. NoSQL will come soon enough. Review all of your sketches. Test it. Ship it. Check your ego at the door.

Re: Ask HN: How do you begin the process of developing a web application?

#39

Post by jedediah »

Draw a mockup on paper and figure out how you want your app to work. Once it's done, get the simplest case working in real software.

I find that by getting something simple working helps me keep motivation whilst going forward, even if the code is crappy. Conversely, I've started a non-trivial number of webapps by designing a DB schema and an application architecture, each of which left me burnt out before anything of value was even written.

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