When you first fire up Visual Studio, or even before that (Hopefully) What do you consider best practices when starting a new project?
Different things i have done in the past
As programmers we should be methodical in our approach.
What do you do when starting a new project?
(If applicable) Figure out whether you are building a throwaway prototype, an expandable prototype, or a final production system.
I think that a major problem with a lot of projects is that people don't get this one figured out to begin with. They either over-engineer and the project doesn't deliver on time, or they write throwaway code that later becomes too expensive to throw away.
One main thing I always like to know is, who exactly is doing what! even from the starting point. Stops alot of time being lost.
I do the following when building for others. WHen I build myself using more agile dev concepts, I still cycle through these steps. It makes it very easy to involve others as well.
Analyze: What do we need to do and why. Aka feature spec.
Design: what are we going to build, how will it work, and why? aka. Technical Spec.
Plan: What and who do we need, when, to do what
Implement: Build, test, repeat.
Launch: Almost there.
Support/Document/Train, etc: In case you get hit by a bus, or someone arranges for it.
Start using version control right away.
It is always frustrating building prototype "throwaway code" that eventually gets thrown away - and then realizing that some of that code would be really really useful to have.