Well my first rule is a simple project never stays simple for long. You build it quickly, it works...sure some aspects are a bit dodgily written but what the hey. Then your client/boss (whatever) comes along and says 'Hey great...now can you add such and such to it please'.

So you add and add until eventually you have a complete mess. Then you have to rewrite it or keep it in an unsupportable state and hand it off to someone like a ticking bomb.

So what I do is always,always design before coding. Unless of course its one of those one-liner apps that takes 2 mins.

In my opinion (and it is just my opinion) you can't code til you know what data the program will operate on. Then of course as you are defining the data you need to 'know' what that data will be. So the only way you can do that is with a design. In otherwords design code and database and then move on to the code itself.

If you code last then the language you use is (mostly) immaterial as you have solved the problem first.

Normally a free rein project just gives you more scope to shoot yourself in the foot. Do it as properly as you can in the time you are allotted and at least you can do some damage minimising.

Just my two penneths worth :)

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