I’ll start by confessing that I have never build a non-trivial application in my life. I’ve mainly worked on creating websites for people and working with HTML and CSS with some Ruby/Python/PHP thrown in.
However, as I contemplate building a non-trivial application, I’m debating where to start and what role the web will take.
Basically: do I build Twitter or Instagram? Hear me out.
If I build Twitter, I build the entire client on the web first. That’s where I start. After I have that squared away, then I could move onto other clients using an API.
Building Instagram, I’d build the native applications first and the web would be the saving and transport mechanism. I might return later to build a web client, but I’d be using IP networking mainly to transport bits to a server so that it could be shared with others.
That’s the mental problem I am working with right now along with learning how to code within iOS. It is a fun argument to have in my head.
2 replies on “The Role of the Web”
Both are entirely valid approaches and really your course of action should be determined by the problem you’re trying to solve with the software. Complexity might be less of a problem with the Twitter method. At least you don’t have to deal with the most technical complexities right away. You can put thought and design into your API while you have a product already in production.
That is the way I have usually looked at things, but I worry about the API that would come out of such of a development practice.
Of course, the most obvious problem is that I am over thinking the entire thing and not building something.