Development Tips according to Flickr (FOWA Miami 2008)

After a disastrous trip I finally got here (albeit tired after a 4am NYC connection to Fort L followed by drive to Miami). Thus far some OK stuff .. my picks:

Cal Henderson (Flickr) is talking about process in development. He’s a funny presenter. Thumbs up from me.

Here are some development pointers, in his opinion:

• 10% spent on developing tools to help develop
• Version control – Emails on commits notes – send them out and have them filter into an email
• Version control – Invalid syntax hooks on commit – refuses if invalid
• Amend your own interface for your bug tracker – Bug trackers are often simply too complex
• Continuously test when integrating .. i.e. write tests
• Use a Tinderbox and combine it with alert
• Incremental releasing – Permanent manufacturer but with:
• Dev > Q&A > Stage > Production
• Flags not Branches – use Feature flags; this maintains consistency against the head for testing purposes
• Single button site deployment – however complex it gets; it should still be one button to deploy
• Deploy log – simple, but effective – highly visual error messages are important
• Deploy process – Automate common tasks