I started this topic yesterday on keeping your tools sharp. Today I start with a comment from Dilip with some thoughts on this topic.
Dilip writes:
Here, are my thoughts for your upcoming series for Being Efficient:
1. You wrote about sharpening the axe first, i.e. the best tools to be used but what if we don’t know
as to what is to be achieved?
2. The first and the foremost thought that comes to my mind whenever a new project is assigned to me is
that of getting AS MUCH CLARITY ABOUT IT AS POSSIBLE.
3. Further, whether it is going to be a Client specific or whether it can really become a PRODUCT with
a potential to sell it to other clients also.
4. A famous German Pharmaceutical Company has a wonderful slogan: We Think of Tomorrow Today.
5. This then helps to identify the best tools and the best skills to be used amongst best developers.
Dilip, this is great input. I always appreciate getting reader input on things like this, because there is often a completely different perspective. Nicely done.
As I was thinking about this series I was looking at some things you can do that are a bit more generic, but just as important, although I agree with Dilip 100%. Here are a few bullet points of things I would start with:
First, establish version control. Select a version control tool. Establish a repository. Even if it builds off an existing tree. Establish branching and versioning methods.
Now that you have version control in place, you could even stub out your build server. At least identify the hardware you are going to use, and the build engine that will perform the builds. Maybe you even need to identify and install software for scheduling or performing the builds if you don’t already have an established mechanism.
If you don’t already have development standards, this would be a good time to establish them. Established standards will help the team to collaborate more efficiently. I prefer to make them as detailed as necessary to optimize collaboration, and as simple as possible to allow uniqueness where appropriate.
These three steps are real axe sharpeners that prepare you to do the work of a project. If you are implementing a canned package these three steps may still be quite relevant; especially if you are integrating with, or customizing the external software. A good example of this would be deploying an instance of the Sugar CRM open source software solution.
Perhaps you have other things you find important for Keeping Your Axe sharp. Leave a comment or send an Email to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben