Not only develop the app locally, but really take some time (a day or two) setting up your dev environment and getting it dialed in if its not already. If there

Not only develop the app locally, but really take some time (a day or two) setting up your dev environment and getting it dialed in if its not already. If there are tools you need to install (mysql, apache, ruby, etc), build them from source whenever possible. As for planning, I like to do mine in a notebook with a pen. I'll outline some basic use case notes and list what I think the db schema should look like. Then I'll take that and use it to build my initial models and migrations (RoR) and start working locally. I generally don't deploy an app to a live server until its just about ready for consumption. Not that it matters, but most of my work is in PHP and Rails. Nothing against Django, I just haven't had a chance to try it (soon, hopefully).