If you know where that line came from then we can totally be friends. If not, it just means I am old, so we can still be friends.
Have you ever tried to plan ahead so that events or projects go smoothly? Ever had them fail anyways? Yea me too. But you still plan anyways knowing there is a chance it might fail. We all do it. Well creating a plan in Web Development is important too. It’s not like you can just say hey I want to create a site and lets call it Facebook and have it do x, y, z and then next week there it is. Nope you need to 1st say you want it to do x, y, z but then you need to sit down and say ok in order for x to work I need to have a, b, c and so on and so forth ( you might go through the alphabet a few times for 1 project just so you know.
When planning a project you have the end goal, but you also need to know the steps it will take you to get there. You can’t just create a single HTML document and hope that it will do what you want it to do right off the bat. Most likely you will at least need 1 CSS doc and a JS one too. But maybe you need a backend too. Web Development is’nt always easy, but if you do it right, as in plan 1st it can be easier.
There are 3 categories to just about every Website or Web Project.
- The End User
- Front End Developer
- Back End Developer
The end user, well right now that is you reading my post. You are the person I am writing this for. The End user is always the people who will use your project. The Front End developer is the one who makes it look good for the end user. They make things visually appealing to the End User. Where the Back End, well they are the magic component…. in most cases. Sorry Front End you are the middle man. You take what the Backend gives you and make it so the End User can see it and interact with it. Can you be just a Front End or Back End developer? Sure you can. But the best ones are those that understand the End User too.
Lets say we are building a online shop. The End user is going to visit my shop and see products and be able to purchase them. As the Front End Developer I need to make sure that all the products show up and look good…. typically nicely lined up descriptions can be read, buttons are in place so they can purchase. Things like that. As a Back End Developer I need to make sure that when the Front End button of buy is clicked something happens. That the inventory in the database is updated to be less the amount purchase. That when the Admin adds a new product that the database reflects that. As the Front End I need to also make sure that those numbers coming from the database are also updateable. So knowing all 3 sides is important.
When properly planned and things go as you hope they would it’s an amazing feeling. Even when I am teaching and what I hoped would be the end result actually is the end result that means that my planning was on track. Sure sometimes I work on the fly….we all do. But there is still an element of planning going on then too. Like if I do this what would happen? Is that what I want it to do?
I live for those moments when my planning or my project works out. Even if it is just a single thing that I was nervous about getting right for my students when it works it makes my day and I can steal Hannibal Smith’s line. It goes through my head a lot.
So use charts like in the picture above and plan your projects. Use a readme doc if you need to. Get some thoughts down as to what you want your end result to be… or the end result for the current part of the project. Then when it works… skip the cigar but smile like Hannibal and say it out loud “I love it when a plan comes together.”