Lead Dev 2016 London: The 7 rightous fights

• Heidi Waterhouse @wiredferret
• slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-IXKHM__IeS9h4OhGODzXIrqVZGD6dzZk1SN3v_rBeo/edit#slide=id.p

You cannot fix it later, because you have users (resistance)

TD;RT

• don’t build in technical debt you could have avoid
• be productively lazy

The 7 rightous fights

1. Localization: make users comfy
   • don’t hard code UI elements
   • no words in images
   • bake in extended character support
2. Security: make users safer
   • not cheap, not easy, but beats the alernative
   • leave room for encryption early on
   • destroy data (how does your data dies ?)
   • use existing auth services
   • stop saying “it’s secure” unless you are
3. Extensibility: make code usable
   • is your API going for forever ?
   • make code reusable
4. Documentation: disater proof
   • sublte self promotion
   • good for dev onboarding (new commers)
   • production scripts, build sequence (avoid truck factor). Secretive build engineers are bad ones
   • release notes are the most important documentation for everyone. Spend time on it
5. Affordance: nudge good behaviour
   • example: the USB stick is symetrical and everyone fails at inserting them
   • use your software with regular user rights, not admin all the time
6. Acceptance: test with users
   • find people who are your users. explain them nothing (gemba)
   • if you can’t hire an expert, become a student
   • software is a tool, not an end
7. Accessibility: include people
   • we are all going to need it someday
   • look at your software on a small screen
   • 8% of men are colorblind
   • screen reader links (with a descriptive title)
   • try to do tab browsing, without the mouse

Tactics

• do what you can: bown bag lunch, pair, write unit tests
• money is the root of all business
• decision: saving money is the lever

https://2016.theleaddeveloper.com/talks