In addition: - Make sure you have version control. So easy to do these days, so often forgotten. - don't think that the steps above must be done in order, rig

In addition: - Make sure you have version control. So easy to do these days, so often forgotten. - don't think that the steps above must be done in order, right now. - dkarlovi mentions tests. Start with 1.) smoke tests like simple selenium tests or something like that. You'll find lots of vate towards it if you look and I admit it has issues but for simple projects like this that doesn't change much it should be fine. Of course of you find something better use that. - one of the most important things about a good IDE is being able to refactor confidently so you can rename variables to something reasonable as you figure out what they really are. - the book "refactoring legacy code" might be the best programming book I've read.