Hi everyone,
This may be a general question. Still I like any help and ideas from you all.
Assume that we are handed over a requirement for a web application. The requirement says
1.There will be users all over the world for our application.
2. They will use our system to store and retrive data
3. The system has to send mails automatically for every so and so dates to so and so users.
4. We decide to develop the application using
java,
servlets,
jsp,
jdbc, and a database at the backend
What I like to ask is what are the basic steps we need to take to make this project as a wokable one. In other words, how do we go about developing a simple/moderate/complicated servlet,jsp application. What are good steps in the design, development,
testing and deploying on a moderatly complicated servlets web application.
To make it more clear, I can identify the various servlets needed and their processing, what comes in the presentation part (jsps/htmls) and the java beans (busines logic) and view beans for the jsps part. But before we go into coding what are the NECESSARY PROFESSIONAL GROUND WORK we need to do so that the code will be easy to write,change and maintain latter. How do we keep the design of the whole system for reference so that another person can easily scan the whole system easily and it is easy to hand over the whole project to someone else easily. Do we need to learn UML and design the diagrams first? I want the developing of the application to be a plesant experience rather then first itself jumping into coding and when there is a change and we need to change the code a lot and make our life hard.
I would really really appreciate any help in this regard. I used to develop applications using 'c' language. The following are an overall idea about how I used go about.
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1. get the user requirements and make a formal write-out
2. make a paper prototype
3. discuss with the client how the system is going to look finally and the functionalities
4. Design the data base and tables
5. Layout the directory structure of the system and which files are going to stay in which directory
6. Identify the modules and their fns and how they interact and which files they are going to operate with
7. Finally go into coding (developing the modules)
8. Test each module as they are developed seperatly (give the needed data either by hard-coding or from a flat-file which will be given later by other modules)
9. Finally test all the modules together
10. make a setup and install appln to install the system
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But here with OO development with java/servlets/jsp etc since I don't have a <i>professional <i> experience yet, I would like to get some help from you all , how you are doing in the <i>real world <i>. What are the IDE/tools we need to learn? Any small tip(s) will be really helpful.
Since the web application is going to generate a lot of <i>dynamic content </i> from databases should I first start designing the database and tables first, or the Java classes first. THis is the part I am not comfortable with. If I need to write the design using UML what are the important type of diagrams I should use and keep track as and when the design changes. Rational
rose is very costly for me to offerd. Is there any free ,simple, easy UML tools available on the net?
Thank you for reading upto here patiently.
regds
maha anna
[This message has been edited by maha anna (edited September 11, 2000).]