Rapid Application Prototyping, or RAP(ing) as I will calling it is a fantastic way to be sure you meet your design goals for a project. Furthermore, with AppKit (my own personal Web Application development Framework), it is greatly simplified through the use of an "advanced" plugin and templating engine. How so, you ask? Well I'll tell you... Application Logic vs UI Flow What's the difference in these two things? Application Logic is all about how your application handles user input and data. UI Flow is all about how the User sees and inputs data. When the two are seperated you can work on each without disturbing the other. This allows you to, for instance, quickly prototype your UI screens and workflow without worrying about how that application logic works behind the scenes. That way you can get valuable feedback from customers and assistance in your requirements gathering process. Templating: (develop that unique look before you do the behind the scenes stuff) When I first got started in this web development thing I didn't know there was such a thing as templating. I developed logic right alongside my UI. In fact in a lot of ways my UI was driven by my application logic. That meant changing something required recoding and reworking my apps logic. This, while challenging and fulfilling, wasn't a particularly useful way of going about things. It was, however, fashionable at the time and everyone was doing it. Nowadays I've grown up and use a much more efficient system. I build my UI seperately using a templating engine. This lets me attach logic to it later (I can detach logic too, or even rework logicall without once touching the template) . I can change the template (rework or even drop the template all completely) all without once touching the logic or even having any logic behind it. In essence I can create a mockup of the programs UI flow demonstrate it, tweak it, test it and then attach the backend. RAP is definitely the way to go. Plugin Architectures (add a piece here add a piece there) So you can create your UI without once touching the logic. All well and good you say, but what then? Ahhh, that is the beauty of it. Once you have your UI in place start attaching actions to the UI. Then develop the logic that handles that action. If you framework has plugin functionality then you can do that piece by piece. AppKit dynamically loads the plugin you need to do the action you requested. If no plugin fits the action it will tell you so. Need an action? Develop an interface for it. Think of plugins as the hooks for your UI into the Application. And all you have to do is drop them in one at a time or by the wheelbarrow full if you want. Complete separation of logic and program flow/UI. It's a beautiful thing trust me.
