Building a Serious Application - Key Considerations

If you're thinking of building a simple, testable application, the requirements are minimal since you can manage everything locally. However, if your goal is to develop something serious, there are several factors to consider to avoid wasting time, money, and resources.

If you have an idea for an application, it's essential to think about the following points before development begins:

• Budget and application complexity
• Architecture
• Maintainability

These aspects are critical at the start of your project (we're excluding market research from this discussion).

1. Budget

Budget is a vital aspect to consider because it defines the scope of resources your application can sustain. To illustrate this, let’s look at a real-life scenario:

Real Case Study

A client once wanted to develop a complex application with multiple modules and interactions with external systems. The initial budget was relatively low (a detail that was initially overlooked). After a year of hard work, the client faced a significant budget problem—many of the integrations and services required substantial costs, both high and low.

Key cost items included:

• Databases
• External APIs
• Security protocols
• Service infrastructure

In short, a lot needed to be covered to ensure the application's functionality. Unfortunately, the budget didn't account for many of these ongoing costs, such as monthly or annual fees for certain services.

In the end, the application had to be refactored, and reducing costs caused additional issues because certain initial implementations had to be scaled back. This scenario emphasizes the importance of knowing the project's allocated budget—both for personal and client projects—before diving in. This is referred to as Technical Breadth: understanding what you don't know.

2. Architecture

Once you have a budget, you can determine an architecture that fits your needs. Why is this so important?

It's a common mistake to say, "I really like microservices architecture because it's trendy." Instead, ask yourself:

• Why do I need microservices?
• Why do I need an N-Tier architecture?
• What makes a specific architecture suitable for my project?

Remember, your architecture should be chosen based on your project’s specific requirements and constraints. In future articles, we’ll dive deeper into software architecture.

3. Maintainability

Once your application is in production, the real work begins. It's not enough to launch the application and hope it runs smoothly forever.

You must continuously maintain and update it, adapting to new technologies that provide better solutions and alternatives. Keeping an application in a state of constant improvement is key to ensuring long-term success.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment—we’d be happy to help!