Planning

Posted by Jad on May 30, 2007

Like with anything else, developing a web app starts with a minimum of planning.

  • How long should it take?
  • How much will it cost?
  • How simple will it be?

Common difficulties you face when planning:

  • Saying 15 weeks is already planning way too much in advance
  • Cost will depend on the time it takes (which isn’t set in stone)
  • Advanced features means harder for competition to beat but also longer time to build

Here’s how I see it:

  • Breaking it all down to 5 main phases, each ranging from 1 week up to 4 weeks for a total of 9 weeks
  • Maximum budget: $13,000 (initial marketing included)
  • Features: the strict minimum, sticking to the essential features and nothing extra for now

That’s it for now - next up will most probably be a slightly more detailed timeline, but for now I will get back on the wireframe sketches.

Let’s get rollin’

Posted by Jad on May 30, 2007

Ok, like most of the posts, this will be a quick one to explain the purpose of this blog since I don’t see myself writing an ‘about’ page anytime soon.

Before I start though, I’d like to clear some things up so you don’t waste your time here if it’s not for you.

  • Don’t expect to read perfect english
  • Don’t expect to learn every single detail

That’s it for now, maybe I’ll add more as I identify what annoys me most about writing instead of coding.

Now, why am I doing that?

It ain’t really to give back as much as to keep for myself. Let me explain. Being me, am kinda un-organized when it comes to papers, folders and all the office crap (am working on that, but not there yet). So I was looking for a way to complement my del.icio.us addiction where I bookmark all kinds of tutorials, snippets and interesting reads for future reference.
It had to be easy to add things on the fly, to search, update or discuss. But most importantly, it had to be accessible to me, my current and future staff. That’s right, less trainings and less paper documentation!

What you will find here:

  • Interesting information if you are about to start a web application and more precisely, one based on a monthly membership plan
  • Successes, failures and everything in between
  • Code snippets for CakePHP, classes or tools that are for general use and maybe CSS
  • Web scraping
  • Different third-party APIs (Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Domain Intelligence and more).
  • Examples, advices and questions about the way I am doing things

That’s all I can think of for now, I am most probably going to update this as things go, but I hope it just fills the need I had and well, maybe any of your needs while at it :)