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Woork PAPER N.1 Structured process you must know to develop a web application

Version 1 - 10 January 2009

About this paper This paper is a practical guide which helps you to follow a methodic approach in order to develop a web application.

You can read the original post here:

http://woork.blogspot.com/2009/01/structured-process-you-must-know-to.html

Antonio Lupetti ____________ My Blog: http://woork.blogspot.com My Facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=709734006 Email: [email protected]

1. Structured process you must know to develop a web application Developing a web application it's a hard work which requires much time you have to spend doing a myriad of things. If you don't use a methodic approach, especially in case of a complex project, you run the risk of losing sight of the project, not respecting times of delivery and wast your time for nothing. Introduction

In a generic web application developing process you can identify five main phases: 1. Requirements definition 2. Design 3. Implementation 4. Test 5. Release

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1.1.

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*"+",#"' Planning and Monitoring is a cross phase which follows developing process defining a project plan composed from a list of activities which you have to monitor during project execution. For each activity you have

Structured process you must know to develop a web application

to define a set of information useful for its monitoring, for example: - owner - duration - costs - ... Take a look at these posts I wrote some time ago about how to implement a project plan with a Gantt chart using Excel or Google Spreadsheets: • How to organize a project plan:

http://woork.blogspot.com/2007/11/project-management-organize-project.html

• Excel Gantt chart template:

http://woork.blogspot.com/2008/02/project-management-excel-gantt-chart.html

• Implement a project plan with Google Spreadsheets:

http://woork.blogspot.com/2007/11/using-google-spreadsheets-to-implement.html

1.2. Requirements Definition In this first phase you have to define the scope and needs of your web application in terms of what your application must do, main features and technical requirements: *"-.$/"0"&)#' 1"2&$34&' !"#$%&'

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Scope In order to define the scope of your web application is sufficient to compile a detailed list with a clear description of application features. At the moment is not important "how" you'll realize them but "what" you have to realize!

Needs Needs analysis is a crucial part of developing process. In this step you have to estimate your potential traffic, choose a serverside language (PHP, ASP, Coldfusion...), database, choose an hosting service... Place a big attention on not to overrate/ underrate your estimates! Evaluate every thing with a right balance between times, costs and objectives!

1.3. Design After “Requirements definition” phase, you have to design your application with a clear project. In this phase you can identify the following steps: *"-.$/"0"&)#' 1"2&$34&' !"#$%&' D06+"0"&),34&' ("#)' *"+",#"'

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Application Map An application map contains just meaningful and essential information about the structure of your application: pages

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(represented with some blocks) and main relationships between them. Your application map could be something like this:

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In this way you have a map with some "locations" (pages) and a "path" (relationships between pages) which you simply have to follow in order to proceed, page-by-page, to implement your application in the next phase. In this way you'll save a lot of time, having clear in mind what you have to implement.

Database Ok, now it's time to design application database. A simple way to do that it's using a entities-relationships (ER) model. In general you can follow this order: define first tables, than attributes and relationships between tables. Your ER model will be like this: !"#$% !"#$%&'%($)

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1:1 expresses the cardinality of a relationship (in this case for example 1 user is assigned only to 1 task, 1 user live only in a city). For more information about this topic take a look at my old posts: • Define the entities-relationships model

http://woork.blogspot.com/2007/10/project-database-define-relationships.html

• A correct approach to define relationships between database tables http://woork.blogspot.com/2007/10/project-database-define-relationships.html

• 10 Useful articles about Database design

http://woork.blogspot.com/2008/09/10-useful-articles-about-database.html

Page Structure Next step is to design an approximate structure of the page, identifying all main sections using a name (for example #header, #navbar, #mainContent, #sidebar).

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Server-side Language !0,,-#&' Taking a mind an objectoriented approach for developing your application, you can defining classes, functions and all server-side features you need. Remember... that's not the "implementation" but a way to have a "guide" for that you'll implement in the next phase.

JS Framework In this step choose a JavaScript Framework (jQuery, Scriptaculous, MooTools...), than pass to identify the main features you want to implement (drag and drop, animation

Structured process you must know to develop a web application

effects...) compiling a simple list which associates each specific feature to one or more pages identified in you application map. A this point design phase is completed. Let's start with implementation!

1.4. Design Ok.. now starts the real challenge because "implementation" is the realization of your application. You can divide this phase in the following steps: *"-.$/"0"&)#' 1"2&$34&' !"#$%&' @0>+"0"&),34&' ("#)'

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Implementation: Database Create a new database and write SQL code defining tables, attributes and relationships. In the past I dedicated some posts about this topic. Take a look at the following links for more information: • How to use PHP and SQL to create DB tables and relationships http://woork.blogspot.com/2007/10/project-database-define-relationships.html

• Create tables and relationships with SQL

http://woork.blogspot.com/2007/10/project-database-define-relationships.html

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HTML Use the page structure you defined in Design phase to implement HTML code: id="navbar">