KISS — keep it simple, stupid — or “measure twice, cut once” can be thought of as the mantra for shipping any site and/or app. I was reminded of this when Tracy Osborn recounted her story on how she built Wedding Lovely, when she described that she suddenly found herself working with multiple codebases. Keeping it simple is great for when you’re first starting/iterating on your bright idea. The great part is, you’re not really sweating the little details, as much as you’re more about getting something out into the wild.
If we take it a step further, you can also apply the “measure twice, cut once” rule of thumb for when you set up your workflow in such a way that it won’t become a huge timesuck, when adding new features to your site/app; all that sketching you did ahead of time finally paid off! The one thing I always seem to struggle with is the tidy part. It’s often overlooked, especially when you inherit code that has been passed down from dev to freelance to agency to coworker to dogwalker/etc. and then to you. Oftentimes, you’re looking at code varying styles, so try to keep it tidy and don’t forget to describe your code within the comments. Hakuna Matata.