Ten Principles for Effective Front-end Development

# Ten Principles for Effective Front-end Development
*by Harry Roberts*

## 1. The Simplest Option Is Usually the Best
* Faster and cheaper to implement.
* Easier (for other developers) to understand, inherit, maintain, debug.
* Less likely to fail or break.
* Lessens the amount of cognitive overhead when working at scale.

## 2. Reduce the Amount of Moving Parts
* Get rid of as much as you can.
* Every moving part is a potential point of failure.
* You’re inviting the chance for something to go wrong.
* Reduce both features and code.

## 3. Understand the Business
* Code itself is unimportant: it’s a means to an end.
* Understand the business cost and value of your work.
* Don’t waste other peoples’ money.

## 4. Care Less, Care Appropriately
* No one cares about your code more than you do.
* Pick the right battles.
* Remain objective.
* Balance the needs of everyone.
* Be less selfish.
* There is a much bigger picture to look at.

## 5. Pragmatism Trumps Perfection
* ‘Good enough’ today is better than ‘perfect’ tomorrow.
* Does it work?
* Measure features by their business value.

## 6. Think at Product Level
* Your job isn’t just to reproduce designs anymore.
* Do not put yourself in a bubble.
* Get involved with everyone else’s issues.
* Do what’s right for the product.

## 7. Do Not Design Systems around Edge-cases
* Don’t let the minority lead the majority.
* Build for the most common scenario first.
* Solve edge-cases separately.

## 8. Do Not Make Decisions Based on Anecdotal Evidence
* Anecdotes are not representative.
* Anecdotes are isolated incidents.
* Trust data, not stories.

## 9. Don’t Build It until You’ve Been Asked for It
* You’ve caused yourself work, and cost the business money.
* No spec, so how do we know it’s right? How do we test it?
* Could end up influencing the rest of the project.
* Now you have to maintain something that no one even wanted.
* Solve each problem as you encounter it.

## 10. Expect and Accommodate Change
* Always keep adaptable, flexible, and nimble.
* Everything is subject to change.
* Nothing is set in stone.