11 May 2004

Managing Backend Workflow

Note: In this post, backend development refers to server side development such as ASP, ASP.net, PHP programming, SQL databases and all the others stuff that is out there. Front-end development refers to the HTML/XHTML design, CSS and JavaScript, and Graphic Design, as well as others.

While I have been reading the book Web ReDesign: Workflow that Works there has been mention along the way of the need to have a separate workflow plan for backend development. This workflow should run in parallel with any front-end workflow in place for the project. The book, however, does not go into what the backend workflow should include, since it only focuses on front-end workflow.

Since I read that I have been thinking about backend workflow, and how it should run in parallel with the front-end developments. Obviously, there must be certain points in the front-end development that backend development should be considered, and visa versa. It’s not as if you can just run both workflows at parallel with each other and then introduce them to each other at the end. If it was done that way, there would most definitely be some incompatibilities found between the front-end and backend.

It also has me wondering why front-end is hyphenated, but backend is not.

So where should it fit it?

If you have carried on reading because you want the answers; I’m sorry, but at this moment, I have no clue. The girls who wrote the book about front-end workflow said they might write another book on backend workflow. But as far as I can tell, they haven’t yet.

I do have some ideas, though I wouldn’t want to put my neck on the line and write about them because they are probably wrong. I am going to try them out and see how it works. As with all things in this field, it is a case of trail and error before we can work out ‘what works’. And then, it doesn’t mean to say that it will always work, since things change to regularly in our line of business.

Workflow Crossroads

The book talks about having the two separate workflows running in parallel to each other. This doesn’t mean to say that the two work flows will never cross paths though. There are some definite points in the development of a project that both workflows need to ‘crossroad’ at, so that they will meet each others needs, and so that the ending backend development will be compatible with the front-end finished product. I will call these points in the development of a project ‘Workflow Crossroads’. I am not sure what or where these crossroads are at the moment, but I hope that a series of blogs will help me learn. All ideas are welcome, and especially from people with prior knowledge on this concept.

Comments ( 1 )

  1. Jennifer Grucza

    I tend to think of things like JSP and PHP and the code to handle UI events as all part of the front-end. The back-end contains the business logic and data storage and retrieval. By designing a well-defined API for the back-end, the front-end developer can work totally independently of the back-end developer. The back-end API can be stubbed out to return dummy data so that the UI can be easily tested.

    I guess that's a different definition of front-end than you're using, though. I'm not really sure how you could totally seperate the visual design/HTML/CSS from the front-end programming. Perhaps the CSS could be done in parallel, since it isn't necessary for the functional programming, but if you don't want the programmer writing the HTML, it needs to be done before they start writing JSPs or PHP pages, since those are mostly HTML, after all.
    12 May 2004 at 19:55

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