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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

Write something, anything! It doesn't even matter how good it is, just get something up and running. Then change it. Change it again. Repeat.

Have you ever written anything before? Good. Then take the closest thing you have from your repository, strip out the code that doesn't apply and file it under the new name. There. You're already x% done. Now finish.

I've tried many different approaches, but this one has worked best for me. It may seem counter intuitive, but I have found that things move along much faster when I enhance a minimal product than if I stew with my thoughts for too long.

[EDIT: No offense taken, but I took out the template. Now close your browser and go write your own.]

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I'm with Ed on this one, with one small variation, every fifth project or so I start from a blank piece of paper just to get rid of the cruft that will build up otherwise.

That way I still have the 'blank paper elephant' to stare at every now and then but at least not every project and I find that re-writing stuff it usually comes out much better on the next iteration.

It's like remodeling houses, every now and then it pays off to raze the thing to the ground and start over instead of adapting the house to a new occupant.

This is exactly the way I work - I almost never actually start from scratch.

After following the anti-planning approach for a long time, with dozens of half-finished pet projects to show for it, it seems approximately as good as procrastination (for me). If I get excited about something and start tapping away at the keyboard, I'm often left with a couple thousand lines of code and the realization that there are some major components that could have been thought out much better. The joy I originally had in creating it takes a major blow when faced with major rewrites (and the thought of all of the wasted time that could have been better spent thinking about it).

Nowadays, I'll let a project incubate in my head for a few days/weeks/months and approach the keyboard with a solid plan in mind and a well reasoned, well designed feature-set/interface.

But if you really don't have time for an incubation period, write your schema out first. This exposes so many design flaws in the beginning while it's still very easy to manipulate. This should be the "contract" you sign with your blood for the vast majority of apps you'll write for the web, and you should be spending a good deal of time thinking about it (for any non-trivial app) then, not later when you're atop a few thousands lines of uselessness.

You probably are never going to use the original code you put down, so its kind of irrelevant how you start designing your web app. The most important thing is to start working. By doing this you will know what works and what doesn't. This will help you in your next iteration.

No offense, but please don't use this template :)

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

I didn't understand what happened with the template and what it was.

100% right. Get something working on the screen as soon as possible. Then show it to your designer and product people, and get immediate feedback about whether it looks like it's going to work for the audience or not.

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