Choosing Your Project Type

Follow along at https://zhangyijiang.github.io/orbital-choose-project-talk/

Do your own research
I can't talk about everything

Discuss with your partner
But not too loudly

Ask questions!
Your friends, your mentor, or me (at the end of this talk)

I have an idea!

But now what?

What can I build?

Capabilities? Limitations?

Who Am I?

Zhang Yi Jiang

ZhangYiJiang

Yi Jiang

meebleforp.com

Survived CS3216, CS3217

NUSMods developer

Intern at Zendesk, nuTonomy

What is a...

platform?

framework?

API?

Platform

The hardware, software and ecosystem on which your project is built

Framework

The foundation for your app

app
 ├── Console
 │   └── Commands
 ├── Events
 ├── Exceptions
 ├── Http
 │   ├── Composers
 │   ├── Controllers
 │   │   └── Auth
 │   ├── Middleware
 │   └── Requests
 ├── Jobs
 ├── Listeners
 ├── Models
 ├── Policies
 └── Providers

Provides structure

Simplifies common tasks

API
aka. Application Programming Interface

How computers talk to each other

Questions?

Every project is different

So what is right for me?

• Web app
• Mobile
• Game
• Browser extension
• Chatbot
• Desktop
• ...and anything else you can imagine

Rank your priorities

Evaluate the project types

Reach and accessibility

Who can access or use your project, and is it easy to do so?

Educational

What do you learn from building the project?

Development experience

Is it fun or easy to build? Is it expensive?

Competitors

What do existing apps use?

Why did they choose it, and should you try to differentiate?

Monetization

Can you make money?

• Reach + Accessibility
• Educational
• Developer experience
• Competitors
• Monetization

Web Apps

How websites work

Frontend

HTML/CSS/JavaScript

Static website

Backend

PHP, Ruby, Python, JavaScript...

Web Applications

Single Page Application

Pros

Reach - Easily cross platform

Pros

Accessible - No installation required

Pros

Easy to learn - start simple, learn as you go along

Pros

Easy to develop - No compilation, wide choice of languages

Cons

No direct hardware access - weaker API, poor performance

Cons

Weaker and inconsistent API

Cons

(Relatively) poor performance

Cons

Non-native UI

Cons

Fast changing - short knowledge lifespan

Examples!

of things which you might not think was possible with web apps

Image compression! (Sort of)

Virtual reality!

Module planning!

Console emulation!

Questions?

Resources

• Mozilla Developer Network: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/ and https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps
• Google Developer: https://developers.google.com/web/
• Can I Use: http://caniuse.com/

Mobile Apps

Native

Android + Kotlin

iOS + Swift

Cross Platform

Xamarin + C#

React Native + JavaScript

• Games
• Performance sensitive
• Require native APIs

Pros

Native Platform

Pros

Native Platform - Native UI and API

Pros

Native Platform - Hardware access

• Advanced camera options
  (White balance, aperture, FOV)
• Filesystem access
• Fingerprint readers
• Game controllers

Pros

Native Platform - Performance

Pros

Developer Experience - Better tooling, more mature

Cons

Developer Experience - Steep learning curve

Swift

let cannonFiringRangeGradient: CGGradient = {
    let colors = [UIColor.white.withAlphaComponent(0.3).cgColor,
                  UIColor.white.withAlphaComponent(0).cgColor]
    return CGGradient(colorsSpace: nil, colors: colors as CFArray, locations: nil)!
}()

let center = CGPoint(x: firingRange.bounds.width / 2, y: firingRange.bounds.height)
let radius = firingRange.bounds.height

firingRange.image = {
    let renderer = UIGraphicsImageRenderer(size: firingRange.bounds.size)
    return renderer.image { rendererContext in
        let context = rendererContext.cgContext
        let gradient = Constants.UI.cannonFiringRangeGradient
        context.drawRadialGradient(gradient,
                                   startCenter: center, startRadius: 0,
                                   endCenter: center, endRadius: radius,
                                   options: [])
    }
}()

HTML

<div class="cannon-range-bg">

CSS

.cannon-range-bg {
  background: radial-gradient(circle 100px,
                  rgba(255, 255, 255, 0),
                  rgba(255, 255, 255, 1));
}

Cons

Developer Experience - Compiled languages

Cons

Developer Experience - Heavier tooling

Questions?

Mission Control - iOS development - 19 May

Other project types

Quick fire round

Games

• Any platform
• Native app, Unity or Unreal
• Multi-disciplinary
• For experienced developers
  (Unless it's really simple)

Mission Control #2

Game Development Group - 26 May

Browser extensions

• Lives in the browsers
• Privileged access to browser
• Use WebExtension API, HTML + CSS + JS
• Can be part of bigger project

Chatbot

• Instant messaging apps as platform
  Telegram, Facebook
• JavaScript
• Relatively new, fun to experiment with
• Can be part of bigger project

Desktop Applications

Native

• AppKit + Swift
• WPF + C#

Cross Platform

• Election + JavaScript
• Qt + C++

(Looks familiar?)

• Pro: Similar to mobile apps
• Con: Similar to mobile apps

Closing thoughts

Consider carefully

But choose quickly

Have fun!

Thank you!