Last Updated: 2024-04-19

• Check on GitHub for code you can use or reference beforehand
• Know your version number constraints
• Separate development, test, and production environments
• System in place for unit testing in every language used
• System in place for end-to-end integration tests exercising the full stack
• Database migrations (exclusively) used
• Production system is configured with code (e.g. ansible/chef/docker etc.) — the goal is that it should be 100% reproducible
• System in place for debugging every programming language used (e.g. debugging libraries included and entries in README for how to insert breakpoint)
• Linters in place for every programming language used
• Beautifiers in place for every programming language used (prevent git merge conflicts)
• Code reviews mandatory before merging any risky branch
• One command (almost) risk-free deploy, stage, build
• Process for rapid rollback documented and test-run
• Naming conventions for variables in place and adhered to. Special attention is given to language boundaries
• There should be stable tool re-use from project to project and a common API for getting shit to run.
• Concepts have the same name across programming language boundaries (e.g. if in database it is postcode it should not be postalcode in JavaScript/HTML)
• Automated hourly backups in place
• System in place (and documented) on how to get logs of every component (both in production and development)
• System in place for easily knowing if an email was sent (checking your inbox is not good enough — the email should pop up or show in a log)
• Seed data provided for the development environment
• Zero extraneous files under source control in Git (good use of gitignore)
• Work in progress should be ideally less than 1 branch per developer, and no more than a week old. Otherwise the features are too big.
• Development machine should not require any particular versions of XYZ... they should just be set up with a virtual machine
• Agree on what human language will be used beforehand
• Separate out labels from presentation