I need help planning.

I am working on a pretty big project and its only going to get bigger. I tend to get overwhelmed and have no idea where to start.

It wasnt until I actually had drawn the GUI on graph paper did I have a solid idea on how to program.

So my question...
I am looking for a book that gets into development as in the process from start to finish. I have no idea how to think about this, and I feel this is only going to get worse unless I tackle it now. I have read a few basic java books, but they hardly touch on how to actually design a program and keep it orgranised.

I am looking for book or website or dvd that is specifically on designing, not syntax. So really i just need keywords to search for i am lost here.

I don't know any specific books, but as with anything start small. If you haven't done any small or medium sized projects, you are probably not ready for the big ones. I know it is tempting, but I would suggests to do smaller projects first.

A piece of advice that always helps: split bigger problems into smaller problems and define every problem well. First write down exactly what you want. Seperate the basics from the optional extra stuff and focus on the basics first. That should cutoff part of the project for now. When you know exactly the minimum you want, start splitting that problem into smaller parts. Do you want a GUI? It is usually better to get everything on the background running as it is supposed to before focussing on the presentation to the user. Keep splitting the problem into smaller pieces untill you get to the level of induvidual classes. When you have clearly defined what classes you want and what they should do make them one by one. And don't forget: first throughly test a class and only when you are sure it does what it is supposed to do, move on to the next one. You can even split classes into individual methodes and treat those as seperate problems.

When you get stuck, you can always ask for help here or elsewhere, only make sure you ask specific questions. That means tellings us what you want, what you have tried and what the code is doing instead.

For now and for the future: detailed questions get detailed answers. Good luck!

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Keep splitting the problem into smaller pieces untill you get to the level of induvidual classes. When you have clearly defined what classes you want and what they should do make them one by one.

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That made a lot of sense. Thanks Imorio.



Is there anyone that knows of a book or course that covers this area of thought (planning)?