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Development methods for the solo developer?

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by aristoncc

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As a consultant I currently work solo doing both web and database development. I've been reading up on Agile and Extreme Programming, but in these case they appear to emphasize being in a team. Are there any particular developmet methodologies for the individual developer who doesn't have a team to work with? I am self-taught so I really need to find a good methodology to follow to help me become a better developer and to better streamline my work process.

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by tony hopkinson

Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Keep it simple, make everything readable, and if you design a pitfall, design a handy ladder for when you fall in.
There are a lot of things in agile or iterative methods you can use. The big one is plan out and put in review steps and staged deliverables that must meet predefined criteria. If your plan isn't working change the plan, discipline is everything.
Debugging and rework are your biggest overheads, anything you can do to reduce them is time well spent. You may be good enough to skip certain steps, but don't as it's always the obvious mistake that takes the most time to find.

by sirlanse

Design back to front:
First layout the reports.
What "paper" does the system have to produce?
Are there output files to send to other systems.
That then sets up a large part of your database.
Next Draw out all the screens, have the client
sign off on the layout and order of all the pages.
Show how the menus work, and where the links
take you. There will be data needed by people
to work the system that is not required for
the reports.
Now you have all of your data fields.

At this point, you have a better chance of
success than 90% of projects.

Now code bottom up:
Create the database, tables, views & stored procs.
Then make data access DLLs.
Then any other middle ware.
Then the front end pages.

by rick1947

Maintainability is the key here. While the formal methods of TDD may seem harsh, you can at least approximate them without significant additional cost over the course of a project. Be sure to write a unit test the first time you are tempted to go into the debugger. If you are doing .NET development, use NUnit. You can download the free versions of Visual Studio 2005 for a solid IDE.
When a bug turns up, try to write a unit test that demonstrates the failure before you fix it. Look for patterns in bugs, and try to figure out what the cause was. If you use .NET, use FxCop early and often to have it guide you in following Microsoft's own coding rules.
All of the tools I mentioned have one great thing in common as well - they're free!
Note that while it may seem obscure to write unit tests for web based code, the key is to put most of the logic (and all of the business logic) in classes which can be tested separately. There is an extension to NUnit for web testing (NUnitASP) but I'd become familiar with NUnit first before evaluating this for your use, it's a little less obvious where the payoff is on this one.

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