Best practices on developing a website (localhost vs real website) [closed]

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When I start developing a website i automatically go to my personal blog/website and create a folder called "<clientname>" and just develop the site in there so i can send the client a link to check progress. However i know alot of people test it on their localhost with IIS or Apache? Is there any advantage to this because surely the client wont be able to view your localhost without you arsing around with port forwarding and stuff. What do people do in this situation?

If this gets moved to programmers.se then so be it :)

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localhost doesn't rely on the Internet, so if you were to lose your connection you could still develop. Also you can quickly test your code because you don't need to deploy it to the server every time you make a change. Then when all your changes are made you deploy your code once.

You might want to check out virtual host. This allows you to host a website on a different port, and put your code for that site in a different physical folder. That way you can keep your projects separate. Apache - http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/vhosts/examples.html

IIS - http://www.simpledns.com/kb.aspx?kbid=1149

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I think it's completely based on personal preference mate :). I use structurer a great app from the guys at http://net.tutsplus.com/ - MAC only. This application will create an entire directory structure for me including files, and content within files at the click of a button. So every time I start a site I do that similarly to you with a client name folder.

For windows development (what I usually do), It's as easy as creating a site within Visual Studio, then clicking the Play button. This will automatically run it via your localhost, the benefit here is not so much for the client, but for you being able to develop server-side code and run it on your local machine, to ensure everything works as it should before you upload it to a live server.

So what I do is create and run it locally, build it, debug it, then FTP it to live for the client to see :).

Hope that helps in some sort of round about way!

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There are really two reasons to develop locally. The big one is not having to waste time uploading your work on every change. The time could add up very fast for a full-time developer. The other reason is to separate development from production. Your customer might visit your live development site to find it broken while you're actively hacking away at new features. Having the customer experience a site that was working but is now broken does not instill their confidence in you.