Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
4
Chapter
Basic Planning and
Structuring of Your
Application
Thus far, we've gotten you straight into coding a few apps, given you some background
information on screen resolutions, JavaScript, and CSS, and we've given you a giant
bag of free (and cheap) “stuff” in the form of various resources that you can use while
developing. It would not be difficult for you to, given this information, go completely
crazy coding all sorts of neat things and putting them out there for the world to see and
use. The only problem is, without you actually considering what you're building, the
world might not be too keen on actually using what you've built. And nothing can make
one more depressed than spending hours and hours on a project that only you (and
perhaps a few friends) will ever see.
In this chapter, we're going to talk about application development in two different ways:
Planning your application, which involves understanding what you're building and how
you can make sure you don't overlook vital pieces; and structuring your code, which is a
much simpler idea but just as important for reasons we'll discuss. This is the “bringing
order into chaos” chapter, and we hope that you'll heed our warnings and advice!
Know Thy Audience
If you have any sort of passion for creating something, than you might have had the
experience before of thinking, “I wish that I had a tool that did [insert witty idea here] …
I know, I'll just build it!” At this point you most likely went out and hacked something
together for your own use, and then realized that others might be interested in using it
as well. I know I do this all the time whenever I create a new web or mobile application,
building for my own needs or for people that have needs like my own. Perhaps these
people are your audience.
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