Ask HN Poll: Developers, how many of you work in a one-developer shop?

8 pointsby freejoe7617 lat temu2 comments

I have yet to work in a more-than-one-developer shop. I'm curious, of the web (front- and back-end) developers out there, who works in what sized shop.

Also, if you have any tips or perspective on thriving / surviving in a one-developer shop, I'm all ears.

2 comments

felixd17 lat temu

I work in a one developer shop. Short story, nothing nice was setup when I showed up. Here are my tips and what I have done.

1. Force yourself to follow a set of rules.

2. Force yourself to follow a set of rules.

3. Setup a test server.

   - When I took over all the projects were updated on the 
     the production server.

   - The test server should be a clone of the production
     and regularly updated.

4. Setup another server (hardware or VM) for your "department"/yourself. This is your "production" server for yourself/"department".

5. Setup some kind of ticket tracking system. Be sure it supports multiple projects, time tracking, scm tracking, and some kind of wiki/documentation.

   - Start your wiki listing how you are cloning your
     production system.

   - Create projects for the projects currently in production

   - Document those projects

6. Setup some kind of SCM.

   - Pick one. Which one? Mercurial? git? subversion?

     [ commercial ones not listed, because more than likely
       you have a zero dollar budget ]

     It honestly doesn't matter. Just pick one and stick
     with it no matter what people say. When asked why you
     picked one over the other. Just say "I needed it."

   - Learn SCM strategies. 

   - Write policy for your SCM strategy. 

   - Follow your own policy

7. Educate the users on how to submit bug reports.

   - Inform then that emailing you does not get the problem
     fixed

   - Bug reports let them track your progress and allows
     for open two-way communication.

   - It also gives your superiors a way of monitoring and
     measuring your success in the workplace.

   [ if they don't "see" your worth then you are worthless ]

Last, remember that you are a policy maker as the sole developer. Implement policy that helps you set standards and expectations not only for yourself but for your users.

good luck

edited for formatting

jganetsk17 lat temu

How awesome would it be if there were exactly one one-developer shop. Then, we would all be living in a one-one-developer-shop universe.