[Phpwm] Re: UML Related Question (Rob Allen)

[Phil Beynon]

> Thanks Rob, in that case, do you use anything in particular, or
> is is just a
> case of having it all stored in you head?
>
> I ask this as I'm trying to get a feel for other folks design
> processes, and
> although the adage 'whatever is best for you' applies here, it
> would be nice
> if I could improve my design processes, as I'm finding that a lot
> of stuff
> is getting missed along the way, and planning could be better :)
>

My personal way of designing is that a design gets roughed out on paper then
slightly less roughed out on a big flipchart all at the same time as its
written. That way as ideas and functionality come along they can be
scribbled in, used or discarded as required.
I've never had a design brief so tight that a customer knows exactly what
the program will do when its finished.
Once the functionality is all working it gets made pretty for the customer /
user via css, structured page layout and the like.

I've looked at these types of tools in the past, but unless something thats
being worked upon is a "big team" type project I've not found them to be
useful, just about the only thinga I use are my head Dreamweaver, that
suffices.
Tools that really bring nothing to the project and either extend the time it
takes to do something or generate poor bulky code have no place for me.

If you want to learn to program in PHP well then knowing the list of
available functions and always working to reduce the number of function
words used to the absolute minimum is the key. Sometimes I take this to
extremes, on fwneedham.info the entire site, which I think was 6 or 8 pages,
is entirely generated from 24Kb of code (excluding images).

Phil