How Do You Start a New Project?

What is HTML All The Things?

HTML All The Things is a web development podcast and discord community which was started by Matt and Mike, developers based in Ontario, Canada.

The podcast speaks to web development topics as well as running a small business, self-employment and time management. You can join them for both their successes and their struggles as they try to manage expanding their Web Development business without stretching themselves too thin.

---

What's This One About?

This week, Matt and Mike discussed different ways to start new web development projects, breaking them down into two categories: new projects, with no prior versions, or old projects that are being updated/upgraded to a more modern standard.

Topics & Timestamps

This week we came up with a collection of questions that we think may come across a web developer's mind when it

Episode introduction/explanation | 00:49:00

• The differences between brand new projects and old projects that are being updated/upgraded

Starting a Completely New Project

• The luxuries of starting a completely new project | 00:01:46
  • What is technical debt and why it happens?
  • Migrations with old datasets and dated databases
• Questions & Discussion | 00:05:50 - 00:31:50
  • Do you explore as many new technologies as possible, since you have the freedom to do so, or do you use whatever is compatible and familiar? | 00:05:50
  • Do you work quickly, or slow and methodical, to make the first public build as perfect as possible? | 00:12:14
  • How much consideration is placed into longevity? Specifically in regards to systems that are supported long-term, or can easily export data in common formats? | 00:26:13

Starting a New Upgrade to a Project

• Updating/upgrading an existing project | 00:31:51
  • Being weighed down by and trying to avoid technical debt
  • Respecting old datasets and databases that may not be able to upgraded
  • Migrations of data and/or features that are dated but must be in the new project version
• Questions & Discussion | 00:35:10 - 01:03:43
  • Can a bad enough old project make you turn away a job for a new project, if the old project needs to be largely respected? | 00:35:10
  • At what point would you write off an old database and re-make the dataset manually? | 00:49:20
  • At what point would you demand a complete re-build with no old features being respected? | 00:55:38 Thank you!

Thank you!

If you're enjoying the podcast consider giving us a review on Apple Podcasts or checking out our Patreon to get a shoutout on the podcast.

Support us on Patreon

You can find us on all the podcast platforms out there as well as

Instagram (@htmlallthethings)
Twitter (@htmleverything)
TikTok