If you’re an app maker, it might seem like your goal is to get to release day. Get the app done, make it available, publish an announcement, and then get back to coding. Let the world do what it’s going to do.
One bang, and then back to work, in other words.
But that’s not going to maximize your chances for a good release. You need to follow through — you need to keep going.
Some people argue software should be agnostic. They say it’s arrogant for developers to limit features or ignore feature requests. They say software should always be as flexible as possible.
We think that’s bullshit. The best software has a vision. The best software takes sides. When someone uses software, they’re not just looking for features, they’re looking for an approach. They’re looking for a vision. Decide what your vision is and run with it.
Build half a product, not a half-ass product:
Beware of the “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to web app development. Throw in every decent idea that comes along and you’ll just wind up with a half-assed version of your product. What you really want to do is build half a product that kicks ass.
When I first saw React.js, I had a quick glance and thought that it was cool, they finally figured out how to do a Cocoa-like MVC UI framework in JavaScript.
Here we are at the beginning of 2019 and I’m engaged in yet another discussion on the merits (or lack thereof) of keeping all of an organization’s code in a “monorepo.” For those of you not familiar with this concept, the idea behind a monorepo is to store all code in a single version control system (VCS) repository. The alternative, of course, is to store code split into many different VCS repositories, usually on a service/application/library basis. For the purpose of this post I will call the multiple repository solution a “polyrepo.”
Test-Driven Development (TDD) is a technique for building software that guides software development by writing tests. It was developed by Kent Beck in the late 1990’s as part of Extreme Programming. In essence you follow three simple steps repeatedly…