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Ask HN Poll: Developers, how many of you work in a one-developer shop?
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.
- jganetsk 17y agoHow 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.
- felixd 17y agoI 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