

Ask HN: Your Software Development Methodology? - nns

So, you&#x27;ve had a brilliant idea that you can&#x27;t wait to develop!<p>You&#x27;ve setup your code repos, development environments and all the infrastructure you need to write your software.<p>What&#x27;s the very first thing you tackle when you start to write code? User Stories? Use Cases? Database Design? API?<p>I am beginning to write a new web application that am extremely excited about and was curious to know the thought process people use to approach an idea.
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fmstephe
Are you writing this on your own? If you are on your own then any methodology
will probably be inappropriate. Most methodologies expend most of their energy
(and rightly so) coordinating communication between team members, stake
holders.

For my solo projects I just hack. I would recommend the following highlights
(for me personally). On your solo project you can now DO all TODOs. Litter the
code base with those little buggers. TODOs can make a very effective
replacement (or supplement) to bug/task tracking systems.

Make sure you have a fast build. I will make the assumption that you are
writing unit tests and say, optimise those so they whizz by after new feature
is coded up. When they get slow, refactor them like a monster until they are
fast again.

All in all (and the list above is really specific to me) you can now optimize
for your development pleasure. Do this! That is the best methodology I know.

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bjoerns
One of my biggest issues when starting to write new code on my own is that I
find myself quite often being carried away. So what I force myself to do these
days is to write down a few user stories, nothing too fancy but just to have
an outline of what I really want to do. Next steps are unit tests and then
coding up the model which goes hand in hand with db design. Putting together
the UI is another one that requires a lot of discipline as I often find it too
tempting fiddling around with design details instead of putting together the
functionality first and do the design bit in the end. So yeah, after models
build controllers and the views, not worrying too much about the looks. Just
my way of doing things, would be interested in other peoples approaches!

~~~
nns
I agree. The sames true with me. I find myself getting distracted and fiddling
around with new frameworks and libraries. I think I'll try your approach of
nailing myself down to a Functionality First approach !

