How does the usual development of the product starts in the Open Source community? Typically there are some wishes (requirements in the best case). Next coding starts. When the code is more or less ready, development of the UI starts. The UI reflects internal technical implementation. In particular, this is how TYPO3 was built and how many TYPO3 extensions are still built today.

Recently I decided to change my development practices completely. Earlier I followed the traditional way: PHP implementation first, UI last. Now I do the opposite: UI first, PHP next.

The interesting consequences of this methods are:

  • UI becomes more friendly to the user. This happens because the UI is not affected or limited by the underlying PHP implementation. User's satisfaction is a very important factor these days. Anyone can build the application these days. Those who can do it more friendly — win.
  • PHP implementation now serves the UI, not the opposite. It makes PHP code more structured because it becomes task–oriented. Also it speeds up the implementation time because I can develop task by task.

When the UI uses ExtJS, such development tactics become even more efficient. For example, for the rest application I completely created the UI part using static JSON files for the sample data. Now I implement PHP part for each UI part. I implement only what is necessary for the UI, not what could be necessary. Simple, fast and effective.