Wondering why your software projects are always late, buggy and over budget? Well, this might come as a surprise to you, but professional software development involves a lot more than just writing code. Over the course of this five-part tutorial on software development processes and practices, find out what you've been missing, and how you can streamline your development to be more efficient and effective.

DevShed.com has a new series that talks about this very subject - the art of software development. Too many people just start in a project, and don't plan anything out - especially with a language as easy as PHP. It's so easy to just prototype a site very quickly and then just let it evolve from there. This is never a good idea, especially when the site is for a client.

This part of the series steps you through some introductory things, including a shift in your perspective ("web development is not about the code") and some things you should expect when dealing with customers.