Simon Willison talked about how some ways to speed up the development timeline in Session 9 of An Event Apart Chicago 2009
- knock something out as fast as you can and hope it doesn’t suck too bad
- cheaper to build than to have the meetings to determine what to build
Interactive development
- use console tab in firebug as a learning tool
- phpsh – interactive php!
- massively speeds up dev time (no more compiling, uploading)
Client-side prototyping
- JSON-P with padding – allows callback to defeat same origin policy
- YQL: SQL queries against APIs
“Beware the Phantom Web”
- Phantom Web: view source = JavaScript tag only
- use JS-only for prototyping, but don’t leave it
- frameworks purpose: eliminate boilerplate, DRY (don’t repeat yourself)
Rapid development in a group
- rent a fort!
- pair programming
- more than doubles productivity
- keeps focused/accountable
- constant peer review
- KJ Method
- achieving consensus
- Great for learning, not as good for shipping a product
Making your organization more hackable
- “Innovation” – use it to get away with anything
- Hack days
- only rule: build something and demo it to your peers
- keep rules to a minimum
- drop constraints & build quickly
Random
- screen scraping APIs
- with YQL, select CSS selectors
Open Source
- not “coding communism,” an ecosystem
- too much effort to release your own code
- use github where you don’t have to maintain the project
- file-and-forget
Q&A
- How does rapid building affect pricing?
- depends how honest you are 🙂
- can be a selling point, too