Hello,

Personally I do very little programming therefore I wouldn't know. But for programmers out there, how do you usually approach a project. Would do you a few diagrams or get right onto your computer and start coding?

Ed

Not sure about diagrams, lol but i usually sit down and write/type a detailed plan of the project including all features and pass this by the client. If all is ok sit down and start the programming.

The most important part is communiction with the client, you can spen days writing a program without consulting your client and showing them your progress only to find out its not what they wanted.

Also, if you are managing a number of projects or have a team of programmers, i recommend you purchase/code one of those online project managers.

Regards,
Jason

Where do you start programming? Meaning like, which part of the program would you start initially(IE. Login, interface, backend, database?)

Of those four, database, backend, login, interface. My personal opinion

Sounds reasonable, so you would usually do the full backend before the interface. Do you usually use a template interface or what kind of interface.

I think the best way to start is to carefully plan out on paper how exactly you want the program to function then knock up a basic backend system that you can add to as required.
I would say that it's vitally important to ensure you have a powerful backend system before you attempt to program any specific features.
As Jason said it is very important to keep in touch with the client at all times to ensure they are happy with what you are doing.

By a powerful backend system, what specifically do you mean?

Well assuming we are talking about a reasonably large project rather than simply a few hundred lines of code I think its important to have number of core files which handle the most commonly used functions in the program, do the skin rendering, etc. I would call this the backend system.

Do you usually use a template system for your interface? or do you output your code within the layout design.

Well with recent projects I have favoured a sort of hybrid system which is really quite hard to explain. Take a look at the demo on http://sitepanel2.com/ and hopefully you'll get an idea of what I mean.