🎖️Best Practices for Software Development Efficiency

Streamlining your software development process isn't just about writing code; it's about creating a cohesive, efficient workflow. By adhering to these best practices, you'll not only enhance code quality and team collaboration but also achieve the most insightful visualizations on Hivel, ensuring your projects stay on track and transparent.

1. Keep it Bite-Sized: Aim for code chunks under 400 lines. Smaller segments are your friends—they're easier to digest, test, and keep bug-free. Few companies go as low as 80 lines per PR.

2. Kick Off with Commits: Create a separate branch for each feature development task. As soon as you have a logical conclusion, do a commit - commit early and often. Avoid bundling all changes into a single, large pull request at the end of development.

3. Peer-Reviews: Implement a review branch configuration to ensure all PRs are reviewed by someone other than the author before merging. This process helps catch errors, improve code quality, and maintain consistency. Dedicate focused time to PR reviews, especially for larger changes, as thorough reviews are crucial for preventing production bugs and reducing technical debt. Aim for 100% PR review coverage, prioritizing quality over speed to maintain high code standards.

4. Quality Over Speed: When reviewing PRs, take your time, especially with the larger ones. A thorough review today saves a headache (and a bug) tomorrow. Avoid flashy reviews (reviewing large chunks of code in few minutes).

5. Track and Plan: Always use story points, assignees, and epics in your Jira tickets. It's not just paperwork; it's about making your work visible and planning effectively. No story points for tickets means reduced velocity for work being done, which is like getting no credit for your hard work.

6. Connect the dots: Include the Jira ticket ID in your commits and Pull Requests. It creates a clear trail linking your code changes to specific tasks, making it easier to understand the context and purpose of modifications. This practice ensures all your work is properly documented and accounted for, enhancing traceability and project management.

7. Merge over Squash: Use merge commits when integrating changes to maintain a clear history, preserving the context of individual modifications and making it easier to track the evolution of features over time.

8. Embrace Testing: Write tests for your code, including unit, integration, and end-to-end tests. Testing ensures your code does what it's supposed to do and helps catch issues early. While it may sound like slowing down, it actually will speed up the overall process.

9. Keep It Clean: When building new features, refactor surrounding code to improve readability and maintainability. Pay special attention to areas or repositories experiencing frequent rework, as these are prime candidates for refactoring. Regular refactoring keeps your codebase clean, reduces technical debt, and makes development more efficient in the long run.

10. Document Wisely: Write clear, concise documentation for your code and features. Good documentation helps others understand your work and saves time when revisiting old code.

11. Engage in Dialogue: Leaving comments on the PR is a good practice that encourages open discussion, provides clarity on decisions made, and creates a record of the thought process behind the code changes.

12. Tag that hotfix! Implement a systematic approach to differentiate hotfix PRs from regular ones. We suggest using 'hotfix'-related keywords in branch names or adding specific labels to hotfix PRs for easy identification later on.

13. Sprint Ready: Plan, Tag, and Launch! Before kicking off any sprint, aim to plan and tag most work to sprints. This gives developers clear visibility into upcoming tasks, allowing them to hit the ground running when the sprint starts.

14. Distinguish production vs. non-production bugs: Establish a way to distinguish between production issues and in-sprint issues to improve prioritization and resolution. Common approaches include using a field to tag whether an issue is a production or in-sprint issue, or using separate issue types for each.