Planning a programming project by example (C# or C++)

Question

I am in the last year of undergraduate degree and i am stumped by the lack of example in c++ and c# large project in my university. All the mini project and assignment are based on text based database, which is so inefficient, and console display and command, which is frustrating.

I want to develop a complete prototype of corporate software which deals in Inventory, Sales, Marketing, etc. Everything you would usually find in SAP. I am grateful if any of you could direct me to a books or article or sample program.

Some of the question are :

1. How to plan for this kind of programming? should i use the concept of 1 object(such as inventory) have its own process and program and have an integrator sit for all the program, or should i integrate it in 1 big program?

2. How to build and address a database? i have little bit knowledge in database and i know SQL but i never address database in a program before. Database are table, and how do you suppose to represent a table in a OOP way?

3. For development type, which is better PHP and C++ or C# and ASP.NET? I am planning to use Web Interface to set form and information, but using a background program to handle the compute. .NET is very much integrated and coding should be much faster, but i really wonder about performance if compared to PHP and C++ package

thank you for the info

Answer 1

This may not answer your question directly, but I thought this might help you get started in some way. So here it goes: I would say, "think through the process". This means, think through the software development process:

• Gather requirements
  • Identify and define the problem.
  • Get as much information/facts as you can. (turn on green light, think about everything that you want to go into your software)
  • Come up with a baseline (turn on red lights, what you really want? the minimum functionality your software "must have" - cant live without)
• Analyze
  • Know what you don’t know, what are the missing facts?
  • Evaluate your information or lack of it/reliability of information source.
  • Infer facts that you don’t know.
  • Form an assumption, opinion, or possible solutions.
  • Consider alternatives and implications of each solution.
  • Form an action plan.
  • Identify technology pros/cons.
  • Decide technology
  • Comeup with a functional specs.
• Research
  • Dig into stuff that you would want to know (Best database, ORM, design practices, code samples - gather everything, read about inventory systems that are already there)
• Design
• Develop
• Test
  • Fix
• Prepare deployment plan
• Release the product
• Gather user feedback
• Analyze user feedback
• Plan for items in next release.
• Repeat steps

And Enjoy!