Projects, Research, and PHPBuilder.com resources

ATS16805

Hello! I came here today to ask a quick question and as i entered the lounge, i decided to stop by the watercooler for a sec and read what i have never indulged in before today-- the "Projects" thread. What a cool thing to have around here!

so, it gave me the idea to embellish upon my original question.

Originally, and i guess this is practically more of a VBulletin question-- I just wanted to ask if there is some way, or something you suggest i do if i want to read only my topic threads which pertain to a certain project. I realize it would be difficult to sort based on content, so i would use date to do the best possible match sorting criteria.

So-- if you wanted to sort all of your threads to read their Titles, by date, how would you do that?

Secondary to that question would be -- once i sort all of those topics, is it possible (and I know this is getting "out there") to do something like have them g-zipped to file for local storage? Any way to more easily archive them all at once?

I thought of this as i was sitting here, about to resume work on a big project (for me, it's big) for which i have a lot of inquiries here-- the process through which I leared a whole lot-- really grew in my knowledge and skill w/ PHP as i've worked on this thing, and interacted here in the forum-- it occurred to me what a great loss it would be if i were suddenly, for whatever the reason, unable to access those threads. So i thought of how i might most easily archive them locally.

the embellishment on the original question is just in regard to organization:
What do you to / how do you ensure that your projects are neatly organized from start to finish. I'm interested in hearing about anything from "do you keep notes" to, do you use any supplemental programs (or IDE's) to help you organize your work, and if so what are they, to just basically-- what is your technique for keeping track of your progress-- which in my case i would report something like "i keep notes in WordPad so i can use rich-text formatting. i keep a folder in my project's localhost root directory where i store those notes".

I'm just looking for someone out there who might be using a really good system that seems to work really well. i realize everyone develops their own way of doing things, and i feel like i'm kind of developing one, but maybe there's something i could be doing better, more efficiently, some important little thing that i should always make note of, a rule of thumb, something you definitely recommend, etc.

thanks a lot! i look forward to reading any replies!
🙂

bpat1434

UserCP is a good place to start

You can list all your subscriptions, and sort by date....

As far as keeping notes: I don't. I'm trying to work on a MS Access DB thing (since it's more portable than mySQL right now) to which I can follow my work and progress daily. And if the need arises, say "I worked for X hours this day and did this work." Already had one client screw me over cuz they said I didn't do enough updates, but they never saw the back-end code. So yeah... I'm just a CYA person... nothing concrete as of yet, but I definately will get something down in stone soon....

goldbug

Perhaps the secret is the illusion of organization, as far as clients/bosses are concerned 🙂

AKA, it would take me longer than my "lazy threshold" will allow to type out some of the stuff I do, so you get that horse-poop response. 😃

dalecosp

Definitely this is a big issue. I spend most of my coding time devising a more effective organization.

A] Once upon a time, I wrote what I had done into an email and sent it to a person in a neighboring town, who retyped or c-n-p'ed it to a WP document, printed it, and mailed it to my clients.

So, I was typing it once, and them a second time.

B] Next, I wrote a PHP-based interface and brought this person to the office 2x weekly. Now I type what I've done into a browser and they click a few buttons that turn the saved (MySQL) info into an invoice for my clients.

C] So, now I find I need up-front indications: "here is the problem/symptoms/demand/project goal, so you can know that we are aware of the issue, what we think we can do to solve the problem (alleviate the symptom, meet the demand, etc., etc.) and how much it might cost. A "trouble ticket with estimate", if you will.

So, now I can do that via my browser.

Next up: How can I make C] above automatically turn into B] above so that I don't end up doing everything twice again like I used to in A] above.

Gee, programming is fun.... :rolleyes:

ATS16805

bpat1434 wrote:
You can list all your subscriptions, and sort by date....

cool-- not realizing i could sort sub's by date, i wasn't sure if i wanted to sort through my subscriptions or, do a username search based on date-range-- but your solution sounds perfectly practical, and sensible. 😉

dalecosp wrote:
Definitely this is a big issue. I spend most of my coding time devising a more effective organization.

mr. dalecosp, it's interesting that you put it that way-- i feel as if i do as well!

i realize you're speaking from experience, so i should heed your implied advice in that regard-- but i think we might be talking about organization as applied to two different aspects of development. maybe not, but i get the impression that you're thinking of organization in terms of the all-important
[INDENT]"how can i maintain satisfactory state of organization adequate for showing a client when and where some progress has taken place, and how many man-hours were spent on that bit of work." [/INDENT]
unfortunately for me, this is something that i have put very little time or thought into so far in my "career as a developer". so, i'm glad that you brought it up-- certainly worth considering, and i can see how it would be something that could cause headaches if the need for documentation were to arise, and one were to have none. ouch! yeah, definitely something i need to start doing!

but, i was thinking more in terms of my own "personal" / "local project" organization.

i'm constantly thinking of stuff like "hmm... if i make this folder in the directory with _ , and always update this file when i start on, or finish , then i'll always know where i am in terms of ____ "
but, for some reason, that never seems to be good enough for me, and i'm always trying re-invent my wheel-- to come up w/ something better-- something more close to automatic so i do in fact record my progress instead of recording updates only when i remember to do so-- and ultimately toward the goal of consistency across all aspects of design and development, such as images (raw PSD's or Freehand docs vs png's and jpg's), files, supplemental documents (like PDF, MS Word or Excel docs from a client, for example), and even software updates (PHP extensions and the like).

i realize it comes down to everyone having their own style of doing things-- but i always like to hear how others might be doing things. with many users it's probably such a force-of-habit that it's not regarded as a "process of organization".

anyone else care to share ideas about project organization (or organization as dalecosp described)?