Rapid web app development
With over 15 years of experience in Web technologies, I have seen the web evolve from traditional webpages to modern web apps. I thought it would be great if I can pen down my recommendations on how to get things rolling faster.
The readers are assumed to have basic knowledge of web development.
From 1999 to 2015
The web has evolved a lot in past 15 years. It started with plain pages which just composed of hyperlinks to other pages in late nineties; where the sole purpose was information consumption. Today, it has evolved into apps with media components, social interactions, better design and interface and a lot more. Without further adu, let’s see how to get the things start moving faster.
The mantra: Done is better than perfect!
Do you know Facebook’s Poke app (which was more or less a rip-off of Snapchat) took less than 12 days to go live in production? That motivates me! Hell yeah! Facebook’s philosophy of “Move Fast and Break Things” is truly something every developer must follow.
- Learn to use Google: I have seen a lot of people nagging other teammates and people with simple questions. Being inquisitive is one of the first traits of a fast learner but at the same time, make sure you first ask Google before you ask a real person.
- Use Keyboard more than mouse: I use a lot of shortcuts and can work mostly without the use of mouse because it slows me down. Navigating mouse to the desired pixel on your display can be a real performance killer. Consider, using all those Ctrl, Alt, Command keys on your keyboard for faster turn-arounds.
- Know your Editor well: I use Sublime Text and there are many editors which are pretty neat. Editors are customizable and you must customize it with snippets, short-cuts, deployment scripts to get the most of it.
- Automate everything possible: Use commands like Grunt, Gulp, Yeoman and all possible automation tools which reduces your monotonous tasks.
- Learn to collaborate: When working in teams, consider using Skype for collaboration, Trello or Asana for Task management and Email for casual updates.
- Know your community on Stackoverflow, Slack community, Google groups, Twitter and even IRCs. Long live IRCs.
- Get started with a rough idea than getting everything done at once because “Done is better than Perfect”
Update yourself every six months!
If you can’t catch up with the changing world then it’s better you party like it’s 90s. Last five years have revolutionized the web world and it’s changing at a faster pace than ever and you must keep updating yourself if you don’t want to lose track.
My Development Stack (Dec 2014)
- Operating System: Macbook Air (or Ubuntu)
- Server: Local Apache Server
- Editor: Sublime Text 3
- Back-end language: PHP with Laravel framework
- Front-end framework: AngularJS or React
