Lessons learned regarding building.

2022-03-11 · 1 min read

Some things I've learned regarding building (not programming), especially in an collaborative environment.

Always use a test database. Reserve test data if necessary, but don't make updates directly
Have a layer between the database and the UI. Apps like Airtable are great until you realize everything is an abstraction of another "table". They're great for small (built by a solo programmer) apps, but just not great for collaborating, especially if you don't have good documentation.
Give yourself a few more days or you will want to kill yourself. There will always be more bugs. Once you think you've got an acceptable product, then you have to deal with sharing the code and deployment. Depending on what you're trying to deploy, that's going to be an headache in it's own (especially if you're not in DevOps). I suppose this isn't an issue if you're working on your own side project, but once you're working with others and they want a deadline out of you, it's torture.