The new PD…

I did it. I finaly released the new Purelydreaming.com.

It isn’t a whole lot to look at but it’s fun to have an ongoing ‘project’. I happen to be realy proud of this release becuase it marks a huge transition from a lot of realy old crappy code that even ran slow to the new. The new PD has been completely re-coded from ground up. Every last line is brand new except two functions which only got edited a little.

I have learned some valuable lessons.

File Heirarchy is super important - Once upon a time I used to work on all the files that would create the whole in one folder. I have changed that habbit and my productivity is off the chart.

Variable & Function naming methods - I am now much better at naming variables and functions. Previously I was a ‘function1, function2, function3, query2′ kinda fan but now I’m learning that readable code is very handy. ‘SubmitFeedbackForm(), emailvalidation(), $username’ etc.

Modules & Extendability - This is HUGE. Before i would make something such as a forums and then have to go back into it, hack and slash for a while and I could create something new in it or for it. Now I shoot for a more object orientated perspective where everything is more or less a module and it can be ‘plugged in’ or ‘unplugged’. If I wanted to take any 1 thing from PD and put it somewhere else or in a new application I could. Each ‘module’ like the forums, messages, polls, battles, whatever, are all self contained, can easily be worked with, and can be ported to another project insta-quick. This also helps single out problems.

Seperate Design & Function - Playing along the line of modules and OOP I realized how much nicer things are when you seperate the looks from the working gears. I now make all the new shit work in black and white and then although it takes a little more work at first, I have the design incorperated seperate from the working mechanics of the machine. I have figured out skinning pretty well and with the help of a beautiful graphics designer girlfriend I can have the whole site design completely changed in a very short period of time.

Simple is Intuitive - That probably sounds whack but I try not to get lost in ‘what it does’ so much as ‘how it’s done’. I work with a lot of not-so-tech-savvy people and have found that no matter how complicated something is, you can always make it simple and intuitive enough for everyone. This falls into Design more so than true functionality but a simple way of looking at it is: Everyone wants to click once to get where they are going on your site. They also want to click only once to get where they want to be next. Never do they want to scan the page with their eyes to find the right button to click on. Even if a button never moves it can still get lost. A good rule of thumb for me is to just keep everything ’simple and intuitive’. don’t build a whole site-map for every page and call it a navigation.

Anywho… Time for bug fixes & upgrades.