Web Development Plan

Hi

I just wanted to get information from web developers out there. I am a newbie to the field and would like to get plan ideas from other web developers. I am trying to start a project at the moment but I don't know where to start. I do have a project plan but I am confused as to what to get or do first and would appreciate any help I can get from anyone out there. Basically, I am seeking a sort of to do list to help me get from one stage of the construction process to the other. Like, do I need to start building the home page first or do I move to the about page or something. This is for an ecommerce website and I would truly appreciate every help I can get.

thanks

From ASP.NET NewBie

I usually start with the home page, get the layout and navigation working, then move onto each seperate section. For an ecommerece site, I might do the shopping cart after the home page - since this usually the 'meat' of that type of app.

Breaking big tasks into smaller, more managable tasks usually works for any project.

I break it into smaller tasks as well, but I'll usually do the skeleton, a broad selection of the site and types of pages, then fill in the details. I tend to design very few pages and serve content into them, so I may have a general "index" page style, an in depth content page style, a shopping cart style, etc. UI also rough a lot of layout out on paper, usually grid (graph) paper. I get the general site page designs down, then move to filling in individual pages before I begin to translate it to a design.

In parallel I'm doing the database design work on paper as well. I don't do full entity relationship diagrams but I'll get the primary and foreign keys down as well as normalizing the data structures. I hate to admit it but I'll often mock up the database design in Access and move it to SQL when I'm happy with the base structure. I might work up some of the stored procedures and database code before I get going on the site, usually all the basics, that way I can write the code calling procedures and not have to go back and rewrite code to procedures later. I'll do the same with classes and controls, though more as I go, trying to anticipate reusing as much code throughout the site so most of the code is parameterized and fairly generic.

I also make use of pre-existing stuff whenever it fits. That includes commercial controls, snippets I've collected, reworked code from other projects, and open source code. Basically, I'm lazy and hate reinventing the wheel. I also have a tendencey to promise deadlines that are tough to meet. :)

Jeff