On May 22, 2014, at 10:00 AM, Jordan Clarke wrote:

> To create a Ruby on Rails app, does back-end need to occur before
> front-end? Or can front-end be completed in HTML/CSS before back-end is
> started? OR...must they be worked on concurrently?
> 
> Basically, I'm working with a front-end dev, Matt, and a back-end RoR
> developer, Sam.
> 
> Matt and Sam have never met nor worked with each other. They don't even
> know each other exists. Can my web app project be completed with Matt
> completing front-end and sending the completed HTML/CSS templates to Sam
> (who would then go on to implement back-end)?
> 

This can work, although it's not optimal. It's going to put more burden on Sam 
to figure out how to pull things apart and put them in the appropriate partials 
and templates. It's also going to assume that Matt knows all the levels of CRUD 
and that he needs to provide interfaces for every possible state that the 
application might find itself in.

A better way to try this is to let Sam scaffold the whole thing (I mean that 
metaphorically, not literally) and show a working prototype to Matt, who can 
then decorate that working prototype. If Sam is even remotely skilled, he will 
be adding classnames and IDs to things that need them as he works, and the 
resulting HTML will be easily decorated (because there are enough handles to 
grab on to with CSS).

There may need to be a little back-and-forth after the initial decoration, say 
if Matt wants a block to move above another, or to have an additional level of 
nesting for some nefarious purpose or another. But I would imagine that this 
would be the fastest way to get this done, rather than trying to cram a 
designer's well-intended opinion of how the application should work into the 
opinionated structure of a Rails project.

Of course, if Matt has built or worked on a few Rails projects already, then 
this advice may not be appropriate. But given a designer who knows how things 
ought to look, and a developer who knows how they have to work, I think it's 
going to be fastest to start with the developer's constraints rather than the 
designer's wishes.

I say all this as a designer/developer "unicorn", so I'm not preferring one 
over the other arbitrarily.

Walter

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