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What went right and what went wrong in the project:
Throughout the life of the
project the number of things that went right outnumbered the number of things that went
wrong, however, when things went wrong the solution was not straightforward.
The overall design of the database was fairly simple, with the exception of the job
roles and the business logic by which users can create other users, therefore, it can be said
that things went right in that respect. The database contained numerous tables and
constraints, but having normalized it and having thoroughly thought through its design
before actually scripting it helped to simplify this process.
The coding of the application was in line with expectations also. Throughout the
project it was expected that the majority of the application would use HTML tags,
JavaScript and CSS along with underlying ColdFusion logic embedded in the application
pages. However, trying to put too much of the business logic into the ColdFusion code
rather than into database objects proved to be problematic resulting in an application that,
at times, would run slowly. This issue was addressed by moving some of that logic from
the ColdFusion pages to the backend database, but some of the code had to stay in the
front-end pages. As a result, certain areas of the application still are not performing as
efficiently as possible and could be improved.
Another suboptimal event was that the code was insufficiently modularized to
allow for efficient code reuse. If the code was modularized the application would allow
for easier future additions and modifications. By not modularizing the code nothing is
being taken from the application, however, it is proper development practice to use
reusable code whenever possible.