How do you take the first steps in a daunting and complicated software project?

#discuss

How do you break ground and start making progress on a big coding task?

Top comments (6)

Bntstr • Oct 25

It helps when I can see some progress, so early on I try and get to a point where something works and is demonstrably part of the way there.

So basically start with some high-level part that changes, even if the inner-works still have lots of work to do. I find this better than starting with some underlying logic which doesn't feel as close to finish.

Dan Silcox • Oct 25

I typically try and break it down into smaller chunks wherever possible, first of all in a bullet list and/or diagram. Once I start to see the components involved, I then try and further break each of those down, just to the point where I know enough to start spotting obvious 'gotchas'.

I like to build little POC (proof of concept) versions for the more complex parts as well, since it can really speed things up when you come to do the 'real thing' later on. The danger is of course that the POC ends up in production 😅.

Peter Vivo • Oct 25 • Edited

In a ideal world, I start writing ::

<!doctype html><html lang="en"><head><script src="https://cdn.tailwindcss.com"><.......

.... until

......></body><script>/* ... bunch of code ... */const qs = q => document.querySelector(p);q('pre').innerText = JSON.stringify(result, null, 2);</script></html>