I started a large (for me... probably not large for more experienced people) project back in 2016 and family issues resulted in me essentially not doing any coding again until quite recently.

I'm no longer looking for a career in web development, but it seems a massive waste to just forget everything I learned, and this project (application, I suppose, maybe?), when completed, will be very useful for me. So I'd like to finish it. However, despite plenty of comments and it being fairy well organised, I just don't know where to start with it. It's not finished, it's lacking additional features I wanted to add, and the aesthetic design hasn't even been started. It's pretty daunting

Does anyone have any tips on picking up old projects? I'm also particularly keen to know whether people think it's better to finish implementing all the essential features, or make sure everything so far is bug-free.

On a similar note, a friend told me his friend, who apparently has some sort of coding background, says PHP isn't really used anymore. Is this true?

Edited January 29, 20188 yr by rhubarblover

6 hours ago, rhubarblover said:

On a similar note, a friend told me his friend, who apparently has some sort of coding background, says PHP isn't really used anymore. Is this true?

No. People who have other preferred languages will always say stuff like that, but very few languages are unused. Start-ups like Slack use PHP for example, and the Laravel PHP framework is close to overtaking Rails as the most starred framework on Github, they will probably do it later this year.

If you're building a business, I think you should focus on a language and ecosystem that allows you to be as productive as possible, and quickly. You could spend a year going all out on technology only for your idea not not come of anything. As much as I love Node, it's hard to argue with ecosystems like Laravel and Rails because developers that use it are incredibly productive, mainly because they favor convention over configuration, everything from how you architect your software, testing, to hosting and deployment have been worked out for you.

Depending on what you're building something like Node could be much more suitable. There's a balance of finding the right thing, without spending too long on choosing or getting hung up on the tech side.

6 hours ago, rhubarblover said:

Does anyone have any tips on picking up old projects? I'm also particularly keen to know whether people think it's better to finish implementing all the essential features, or make sure everything so far is bug-free.

You'll never make bug free software, but what it's probably worth doing is working out what it would take to build what you see as a minimum viable product that can go to market, and get beta testers. Your best feedback will come from this, and you'll be fixing bugs in the process.

Lastly, you should read Getting Real by Basecamp. I often recommend it because there's a lot of great advice about building software in there that you don't normally hear. Here's a sample chapter with the link to the book inside, it takes about 25 mins to read the whole thing, and it's free.

Jack,

Thank you for the reply. It's good to hear PHP is still in use (and that I didn't waste all that time learning it)

I'm not actually planning on starting a business; my interest (and project) is entirely personal.The project is a calorie and nutrition tracking application - those that currently exist lack many features (for free, anyway) that my husband and I want and have far too many we don't. It was fun to make while I was working on it, too - hopefully it will be again, but right now it seems very daunting.

It uses PHP and MYSQL, however I do suspect different languages/systems might have been more appropriate as it is intended for offline use anyway, and I'd like to make it into an application I can use on my phone. I didn't know whether C(#?++?) might actually be better, or Python, or something else... Also, I can't get the latest (or probably anywhere near that now) version of MYSQL on my laptop since upgrading to a newer version of Ubuntu.

If it's a personal app then your technology choice won't make too much difference, although I don't think I'd go for any of the C languages as they tend to be very low-level. Is there a language that you would like to start learning more? Side projects are often a great way to do that.

I'm not sure I have a sentimental reason to learn Python so might go with that. I have no idea whether it can interact with databases, though.