Web Application Development Advice

joyar · October 15, 2014

Hi guys. So I'm a computer science major and I'm feeling like a complete noob lately because my personal project portfolio has nothing. I've been thrown the task of creating an open source web application (for my personal portfolio) and I just don’t know where to start. I learn by doing projects on my own, but this project was just a lot and I'm not sure what to begin with other than an idea obviously.

Basically, do any of you guys have any tips on how to actually implement applications on your own? Where should I start after having an idea? Advice for anything including what your experiences were in developing stuff, things you wish you knew, etc etc would be much appreciated! Thanks for any help guys ^^

Heisenbleurgh · October 17, 2014

I'm fairly new at web development but I had a really good experience in my previous job where I was given some project manager experience in an internal project. I'm no expert, but this is what I learned from that.

1. Ask the client what their idea is and get as much information about it and its functionality as you can. In this case, it's yourself. But try to think of who will use your app, with what purposes, what are the key functions of it, what are some additions you'd like to add but aren't vital.

2. Divide the design and functionality into smaller parts to be addressed individually over time.

3. Design any visual aspects of it.

4. Address each small part of functionality.

5. Test each functionality as you complete it.

Usually there'd be more feedback with the client but in this case that obviously won't be necessary. I think this should be enough to get you started, but if you're interested in the details of a professional scenario you can look up software development methodologies. The one I described is probably most related to the Spiral model.