A: One step at a time.
One of the major challenges I had (and still have, if we’re being honest) is looking at a project I want to do and actually delivering it as a solo dev. As time has gone on, I’ve learned that’s not exactly a problem exclusive to solo devs. One of the things that I have really appreciate at Pillar/Industry X.0 is how we approach this problem…and some of it really translates well to hobby code and side projects.
There are two key points I want to harp on:
- Know where you’re going (what your desired end result is)
- Do only the next thing (focus on what makes sense at the time)
Know Where You’re Going
My personal problem with a lot of side projects is I get an idea, and I start writing code for it. I don’t think about what the end result is going to be, usually telling myself “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself, just flesh it out a bit and it will become clear as you go along.” While I think this is a pretty decent way to write a novel, I’ve come to realize it’s a terrible way to write software.
There is a not-so-subtle difference between planning too much and planning too little. There’s no real benefit in planning out every single thing in advance, from the size and color of your standard buttons to how to promote your new app. But the general idea–web app or mobile? Is this going to live in Azure or AWS or Heroku or what? Am I using GitHub or BitBucket? Should I be continuously deploying this?–helps guide the architecture, the tech stack, and helps define the tasks.
Writing the code is important (sort of the point), and is broken up in it’s own way. But when does it make sense to setup a build pipeline? The repository? Do I need a production environment? When can I actually see changes when I deploy them, anyway? By keeping these questions in mind, by seeing a bigger picture than just features in the code, it helps guide the overall workflow.
Do Only the Next Thing
Having those tasks ranked and in rough chronological order helps you stay focused. Now you can say, “Self, we are going to test drive this feature here. And when it’s done? We’ll setup a build pipeline so it’ll merge into master on it’s own.” Once that pipeline is working, “Self, now we’ll add this other feature here, because when it’s done we can add it to a UI project!”
By modularizing the tasks, you’ll avoid the trap I always seemed to fall into–“I have a web app with no logic behind it and deploying it is a nightmare” or “This code library I spent a month on is useless till I get it plugged into something and I am just too tired to figure out what to do now.” Being able to focus on checking things off a list is satisfying and keeps things moving, especially when you’re navigating a full time day job.
You know you need to cross the country to get from one Portland to the other, but if you focus on that you’ll never make it. You need to focus on getting to the next stop, rather than the whole trip.
The Great Pipeline Post Project
I had this great idea to blog about setting up a CI/CD pipeline, both for much-needed practice and to relay some lessons learned. Spoiler alert: this is a much bigger deal than it seems at first glance. I sat down to get started and quickly got overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things to work through, especially as they occurred to me randomly, while I was sitting in front of Visual Studio.
That’s where this post came from. What if, instead of just breaking down how to setup a pipeline and all the steps under that umbrella, I started with how I planned this mini project? If my target audience would benefit from seeing all the pieces of CI/CD tied together it’s likely they’d benefit from seeing the pre-work too.
Over the next few posts we’ll start by exploring the planning that goes into standing up a new project and move on into the actual work needed. My goal, the whole time, will be to keep it on track and demonstrate how the joint efforts of knowing the plan and doing on step at a time keep things moving at a steady pace.
Zen, Code, and Reveries 