

Ask HN: Does iterating on a project come easy to you? - combiclickwise

not for me. I find it easy to get to the first release but it gets tougher every time I iterate.<p>its a mental block as well as a logistical one. addition of features becomes tougher (not dependent on the inherent complexity of a feature) and the UI itself becomes a challenge.<p>I know each of us is different and so I ask you to please share some tips, if you have, as to how you deal with this.
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damoncali
That mirrors my experience. It's easy to release a project when there are no
users. You just barf code out and deploy it. Once people start using it, or
paying for it, you just have to be more careful.

A feature that you could whip out in an hour with an 90% chance of working
bug-free now takes a day, because you need it to be 99%. It becomes easy to
put things off "until you have time to do it right" - even small and easy
things.

The way to combat this is to work on your environment. Build a solid staging
environment. Automate some integration tests (<http://fakeapp.com> is awesome
for this) for the must-have functionality. Work on your admin dashboard so you
know the instant something goes wrong. In other words, build the tools that
make your next deployment as worry free as is practical. For me, the friction
and misery of the QA cycle slows down my releases until I get all this stuff
right.

It's a head game. I know when to stop writing tests when I'd rather be working
on the app.

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combiclickwise
Thanks for the link. Will check it out. yes, the ide, the staging environment
and versioning systems are i guess very important.

also, I find that new projects start to look very appealing because of the
lack of that entry barrier and lower costs of making a mistake. Then it
becomes a mental barrier to focus.

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staunch
Cleaning up the codebase and taking the time to make it super
maintainable/configurable/flexible is huge. It's worth spending as much time
as it takes to get it to the point where it's a pleasure (not just tolerable)
to work with.

It's just like cooking in a messy and crowded kitchen vs a clean and spacious
one.

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cmelbye
It's easy until I hit a problem with the UI that needs to be addressed. That's
really my weak spot.

~~~
combiclickwise
same here. I tend to struggle with the visual layout in my head. its easy to
see the first version. but addition of features, especially ones that you had
not thought of when starting out, makes me struggle with the layout
visualization.

managing iterations, to me, is beginning to seem like a big unexplored science
and art. big enough for someone to write a book about this as the central
topic, I feel.

