Another thing that is good to encourage is portable data. It's good for its own reasons, and it makes that sort of exploratory environment much more flexible.

Another thing that is good to encourage is portable data. It's good for its own reasons, and it makes that sort of exploratory environment much more flexible. I've reimplemented a few side projects more than once, using common data back-ends because I can. I find it helps for say, messing with a new programming language, because I can apply it to a task I'm already familiar with.