Just wanted to jot down a few aspects of application development that can ensure success:
1. Version control: Manage your source code using a version control system. It will save you from accidents such as ” omygod!! an important file got deleted”, “damn! my hard disc crashed”, “shucks! client is asking for a previous version which has been updated now”, and more. you can try MS VSS or TortoiseCVS. Client side TortoiseCVS is free to use.
2. TDD: Apply Test Driven Development so that much of the bug testing and fixing is done in the development phase and the code is relatively bug free. For Flash and Flex development you can use ASUnit or FlexUnit. FlexUnit gives you a very nice Flex based interface which is a nice advantage.
3. OOP and design patterns: Apply relevant OOP concepts and design patterns for ensuring optimized code that is reusable, scalable, and flexible.
4. UML modeling: Always start your project with creating the architecture class diagram. Spend as much time as possible on this. A robust diagram in the beginning will ensure less coding time and also flexibility or scaling issues in the later stages can be handled effectively.
5. Error handling: Incorporate effective error handling for saving your application crash from unexpected bugs while running and also letting the user know what might’ve gone wrong and provide an alternate path.
6. Be friendly with your fellow coders and share a good laugh :-) Okay, that’s a given for any kind of team work.
I’m sure there are lots more but right now I could think of these as the most important ones from a developer’s perspective.
