Some of the best practices we've acquired while developing for the web! A presentation for students Communication and Multimedia Design at Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden in their Discover Web2.0 lecture series.

1. 5 BEST PRACTICES FOR
DEVELOPMENT
5 best practices for (web/ software) development

2. ERWIN ELLING

3. @erwinelling
“passionate web versatilist”

4. 5 BEST PRACTICES

5. 1:
MODEL
VIEW
CONTROLLER
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wardofsky/2350781947/

6. we use the django framework (for python)

7. there’s also rails (for ruby)

8. and e.g. cakephp (for php)
also other frameworks (non-MVC) save lots of time: ARP (for flash), jquery & prototype (for javascript), ...
trend towards more and more abstraction and more human readable code

9. models

10. url dispatcher

11. controllers (called views in django; django prefers to call their framework: MTV)

12. view (template in django)

13. 2: DO NOT
REINVENT
THE WHEEL
http://www.flickr.com/photos/european_patent_office/3364865051
reuse the stuff that’s readily available

14. DJANGOSNIPPETS
django pluggables for code

15. google groups for help

16. do not develop it yourself when it’s already available: ning

17. wordpress

18. again frameworks: pinax, framework (combination of apss) on top of django

19. used pinax for jijmaaktgeschiedenis.nu
wanted to add twitter...

20. someone else had done most of the work for me

21. hardly had to code myself: just added this; easy

22. 3: DEVELOPMENT
INFRASTRUCTURE & VERSION
CONTROL
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11397615@N00/3306159672/
different environments in your infrastructure
Development, Test, Acceptance, Production
In Dutch OTAP: Ontwikkel, Test, Acceptatie, Productie

23. http://www.flickr.com/photos/parsingphase/3294364709/
version control, e.g. SVN, git, mercurial

24. blame someone for mistakes! oops, i did it again

25. let the person who makes mistakes pay for the team’s beers!

26. 4: AUTOMATE http://www.flickr.com/photos/denis_fox/3537539725/
think about how many repetitive tasks you perform!

27. this doesn’t look as much work, but i made some faults and have to do this 10 times a day
now i can do this with one command!

28. use shortcuts for repeatable tasks

29. capistrano (in ruby)
e.g. for automating deployment and testing
rollbacks when things go wrong

30. buildout, in python

31. automation is good for avoiding problems. letting people fool around while sudo’ing is dangerous

32. e.g. sudo rm -rf
oops!

33. 5: CLEAN CODE
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ezu/277341190/
costs some time at first, saves lots of time later

34. comments

35. refactor, refactor, refactor
no todo’s in code
get rid of ugly stuff
no hacks to “solve” problems

36. how many fucks in google code?

37. DRY
http://www.flickr.com/photos/plinton/21543765220
Don’t
Repeat
Yourself

38. fat models, skinny controllers

39. pair programming, code reviews, read other’s code