Building a new application - Introduction

(Index of the whole series)

I want to build an application and release it to the community. This is an application I had in mind for a long time. Basically, it’s a logging application. Not the one you would use to track requirements and time spent on a project. I’m talking about a logging application to log your weight, track your goals, what you’ve eat, do reports , etc. I know it’s something people want. I’m not doing it for money. I want to learn as much as possible and I think that writing code and solving new problems is a great way to learn. I have to take some basic decision at the beginning of the project and I must admit it will be a good excuse to make a list of all the new things (for me) that I want to use in the project and blog about them. This is an opportunity for me to take the time of using object-oriented techniques and becoming more agile. I will also blog a lot about that, because I find that blogging an interesting tool to learn and explaining to others help reinforce knowledge and being more confident. Also, posting about your goals, makes it a little harder to abandon too early.

My requirements are the the following :

• Test-Driven development. I want a coverage of 95% at least.
• Building an continuous integration server.
• Applying at the best of my knowledge Object-Oriented principle.
• User stories.
• Identify mistakes as soon as possible and learn from them.
• Use a source control software and learn some of the best practices of source control management.

Technologies I want to use :

• It's a windows forms application in C#.
• Windows Presentation Foundation.
• .NET 3.5.
• SqlCe or SQLite.
• Visual Studio 2008.
• Subversion.
• NAnt.
• NCover and NCover explorer.
• CruiseControl.NET.
• MBUnit.
• NHibernate.
• Rhino Mocks.

So I want It to be Agile as most as possible. First step, print the Agile Manifesto!