The Goal

Last tuesday we had the kick-off meeting for my project. Gregor asked me to explain what the program should do.
The intention of the program should be some kind of easy to use "checklist" tool. So you can build a catalog of rules, instantiate a copy of the catalog and answer the questions. Finally there has to be some kind of report. I've built a MindMap that shows the requirements I have. The MindMap was created from the view of a customer.



We also defined that it should be a Rich Client Windows App saving the files directly to the hard drive.

We need a common language

After discussing a little bit, we decided that we need a Common Language (CL). The main problem with programming for customers is, that in 99% of the cases you are not aware of the Domain the customer works with and the customer of course has - in most cases - little experience in programming. So what do you do to understand each other? As the main goal is to build an application, we ask the customer what he expects the program to look like. You can use tools like Balsamiq Mockups to sketch a UserInterface pretty fast. You should not care about any details or colors. The main focus in this phase is to find the flow of the program and what the customer expects the program to do. Gregor also did an excellent post on that on his Blog.
In the next meeting we will use Balsamiq Mockups to get a picture of what I want. Of course I will post the results in my next Blog Posts!!!!

The way

1 1/2 years ago this book crossed my way and changed my way of programming and architecture a lot: Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns by Jimmy Nilsson. In the past year I decided to do my new projects with DDD (Domain Driven Design). In my eyes this is the only way that Software can be built readable and maintainable. In combination with TDD (Test DrivenDevelopment) you've got really great tools to build a solid architecture. I've read a lot about all the patterns being used and how to test your code, but I'm constantly struggling when it comes to put all the blocks and patterns together.

A few weeks ago I've been to a .NET Open Space in Karlsruhe. There I met Gregor Biswanger who is the leader of our local .NET User Group. A small project in mind Gregor was so kind to offer help implementing the project. With a very sophisticated Mentor and a lot of motivation I will start (and hopefully finish *laugh*) my project.

The goal of the project is not WHAT is done, it's HOW it's done. I feel the need to do this, because I didn't find a real solution for my problem. I hope I can help anybody else.



The way is the goal!!!



Let's start