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Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

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41–50 of 190 posts

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#41
I use Taskwarrior (https://taskwarrior.org/) because it's digital, simple, customizable and open-source. Gives me just enough flexibility without complicating things. It's a shell-based tool which makes it very portable and easy to automate.

The workflow is centered around "tasks", which can be as simple as a description. You can add tags to tasks, filter by tags, set task priorities & due dates and assign tasks to a project. Much more to love, I recommend checking it out if the above description interests you.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#42

I use Clubhouse and follow a modified kanban process. It helps me keep on top of dependencies, blocked work, and whether or not I'm overloading myself in a given week/month/whatever.

I've been using Clubhouse for a new solo project as well. I love it. It's so much faster than Jira. It's refreshing using something that loads so fast and has a UI that is nice to look at.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#43
post #9

I have a file called todo.txt, with the current tasks at the top, and everything else below that. It is in version control. As I finish stuff, I delete it out of the file. I add new stuff towards the top if I want to do it soon, towards the bottom if I want to save it for later. For things which are just ideas, I have a second file called brainstorm.txt.

based on your name, im guessing you have a `password.txt` also ?

Do you judge people by looking at their usernames, or by checking whether they end their sentences with "also" also? ;)

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#45
post #21

I use github's kanban board and like the concept of Kanban overall. Some people don't realise that Kanban is quite the opposite of Scrum. One variation that has worked for me / peers over the years is having a "Next 5" column. i.e. something bigger than Current but smaller than the backlog. That enables always having a practical, prioritized mid-term plan (assuming you regularly tweak the Next 5 selection). At the sa…

Me too. I recently realized that you can have user level projects instead of repo level. This was a sticking point for me because sometimes a project goes across repos.

https://github.com/USER?tab=projects

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#46

I have a file called todo.txt, with the current tasks at the top, and everything else below that. It is in version control. As I finish stuff, I delete it out of the file. I add new stuff towards the top if I want to do it soon, towards the bottom if I want to save it for later. For things which are just ideas, I have a second file called brainstorm.txt.

This is what I do too. I tried using things like Trello but found the friction to be too high. I use org mode instead of a regular .txt file though.

+1 for org-mode. I also used Trello. Once I found beorg for iOS, I decided to switch everything to org-mode.

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#47

I have a file called todo.txt, with the current tasks at the top, and everything else below that. It is in version control. As I finish stuff, I delete it out of the file. I add new stuff towards the top if I want to do it soon, towards the bottom if I want to save it for later. For things which are just ideas, I have a second file called brainstorm.txt.

Does anyone else have a problem that this file just keeps growing?

Re: Ask HN: Solo devs, how do you plan your development?

#49
post #8

I think the right 'process' for each person is more important than the 'tools' etc. The tools that will suit your needs , you will learn/make/find over time of use.. The process though is the foundation imo. I have a few habbits that I absolutely know could be improved on, optimised etc, but they make me comfortable, they are my solid automonomous actions, meaning I never need to worry about them. Autopilot mode kick…

> I think the right 'process' for each person is more important than the 'tools' etc.

This can't be overstated. We often get stuck into looking for "the perfect tool" for things, when the tool is rarely the most important thing. The process is king, and any tools should be chosen to support the desired process.

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