To create a Ruby on Rails app, does back-end need to occur before
front-end? Or can front-end be completed in HTML/CSS before back-end is
started? OR...must they be worked on concurrently?
Basically, I'm working with a front-end dev, Matt, and a back-end RoR
developer, Sam.
Matt and Sam have never met nor worked with each other. They don't even
know each other exists. Can my web app project be completed with Matt
completing front-end and sending the completed HTML/CSS templates to Sam
(who would then go on to implement back-end)?
This can work, although it's not optimal. It's going to put more burden on Sam to figure out how to pull things apart and put them in the appropriate partials and templates. It's also going to assume that Matt knows all the levels of CRUD and that he needs to provide interfaces for every possible state that the application might find itself in.
A better way to try this is to let Sam scaffold the whole thing (I mean that metaphorically, not literally) and show a working prototype to Matt, who can then decorate that working prototype. If Sam is even remotely skilled, he will be adding classnames and IDs to things that need them as he works, and the resulting HTML will be easily decorated (because there are enough handles to grab on to with CSS).
There may need to be a little back-and-forth after the initial decoration, say if Matt wants a block to move above another, or to have an additional level of nesting for some nefarious purpose or another. But I would imagine that this would be the fastest way to get this done, rather than trying to cram a designer's well-intended opinion of how the application should work into the opinionated structure of a Rails project.
Of course, if Matt has built or worked on a few Rails projects already, then this advice may not be appropriate. But given a designer who knows how things ought to look, and a developer who knows how they have to work, I think it's going to be fastest to start with the developer's constraints rather than the designer's wishes.
I say all this as a designer/developer "unicorn", so I'm not preferring one over the other arbitrarily.
Walter
