Hi!

I'm just wondering how important YOU think it is to write a structured list of every feature your PHP Project needs to have.

Also, what types of preparation do you think is neccessary to do before you start coding the website(feature-list is one type of preparation).

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It is absolutely essential, otherwise you will not have real idea of what you are dealing with. Project that have no real planning to them normally end early and badly.

Feature list, I diagram out how things will work on a dry erase board. I find the complicated algorithms I will have to do and start figuring them out so I have an idea what I am up against. I will also make a flowchart of what the basic interface will look like, if it is unclear what the interface will look like I will do a flowchart of what has to happen for each process to take place.

The coding is only one stage of development, programmers often neglect this. It is like saying that driving is the most important part so planning out how to get to your destination is not necessary. If you just leave and hope to find your way, chances are you are going to waste your time with a lot of unnecessary driving. Know exactly what you are going to do before you start coding the program.

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How would that diagram of yours look like? Like connections between things? And what's a flowchart and how would I do that?

Thanks for the advices! Greatly appreciated!

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It really depends... Is it only you? if so most of this is not need to such a level. You know what you want. If its more then you its always nice to keep everyone else up to day with everything.

It really matter on size. If the project is very large (couple months of development aka long enough to forget parts) then its really nice to have the extra diagrams. However personally if its smaller (couple days to a couple weeks) I just go strait in. However it does depend on some experiece here. Once you have some something enough times there is no need to plan it out. But it if it is your first time you may want to do more planning (do not over optimize...).

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It is only me - so far.
The project is huge. It will probably not be ready this year.

I have done projects before, but never something like this.. so it's probably wise to document things. I've already written a featurelist and a possible list of classes that I think I will have to create for everything to work.

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I always over the top in terms of planning my projects, so the ETA of the project is always right on the dot.

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VillageIdiot can have my babbies ;d

It is extremely important. I remember the first time that I started a large project, I did not bother to plan it out, and it ended horribly for me, and my eyes.

So how exactly do you plan your projects?

And how would a flowchart of the website look? Would each page get an own flowchart? Or the website as a whole?

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i use proposal strategy
write how coding every where with category,
use pic and other things
of course we must use UML.

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