My First Real Project

Rails
1

Hello Everyone,

 I have been learning rails for the past six month. I am ready to do

a
real project now. With so many choices I have narrowed down my major
gems to
a select few. For database I am going to use MongoDB with Mongoid. For
HTML
templates I am going to use HAML. For unit testing I will use RSpec. For
integration testing I will use RSpec with Capybara. I want to use HTML5
from
the getgo. I want to use SASS with CSS3. I am not sure if I should
invest my
time into learning an HTML5/CSS3 Framework, I didn’t see any information
on
this subject in the Rails guides or any rails books for this matter. Can
I
do all the development first without worrying about the front end design
work? Or the design work can not be separated and is intertwined with
the
back end development? Basically I need help on how to break down a large
development effort into smaller and happier tasks.

Thanks,
Alex

2

I would suggest you to make a first prototype app that jut works with
the core features you want. This prototype can have little or no front-
end work, and don’t worry about tests yet. You do that to quickly
start to “see” your app, without spending efforts in details, and so
you can validate your ideia (with you client) and change
“specifications” if necessary.

Another good tip I always follow is: always have no more than one new
tool/technology in a project. By ‘new’ I mean new to me. It’is easier
to track issues when you are sure about the rest of the environment.

Regards

–marcofognog