Being a developer isn’t just about writing code.
It’s about managing everything — sometimes all at once:
Learning new frameworks
Building side pr...
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I also see it from a slightly different perspective. I can knock out terraform, python apis, microservices etc. fairly easily - this is my strength - but frontend and design is my weakness. I often get disheartened at this point and put it on hold or slap a really poor frontend on it.
Allowing someone else to take the baton wouldn't be a bad idea - whether for open source or for commercial possibilities.
Totally feel you on that, Mike. It’s interesting how so many of us hit a wall not because we lack skill—but because we’re juggling everything. Backend folks struggle with frontend, and vice versa. That “handoff” idea is underrated—whether it’s teaming up with someone who thrives in your weak areas or just being open to collaboration, it can breathe new life into half-finished projects.
Curious—have you ever handed off a project before, or thinking of doing it soon?
It has often been a case where the project is architected specifically to allow this type of collab - ie. an API and services on the backend and frontend simply is an API consumer.
This tends to work well, especially with the advent of GenAI being able to take API descriptions and knock out reasonable frontend code fairly quickly.
That said, I have been exploring the hand off concept in more detail lately as I get the feeling that longer term we are going to be seeing more tasks being done by both humans and agents. The agent needs context and design rationale, but then again so does a human...
Totally agree, Mike. That API-first architecture really sets the stage for smoother handoffs — both human and AI. I’ve been thinking about the “design rationale” part too… it’s not just about what to build, but why it’s being built that becomes critical for agents (and devs) alike. Curious — have you explored any tools or frameworks that help capture that rationale effectively?
I've been working on what I like to call 'spec driven development' - we break the project down using a similar idea to 'C4'.
We define the problem, the preferred tech stack, the architecture that would solve it, then we start defining what the implementation looks like - mostly concentrating on dataflows and interfaces between parts.
Once you have interfaces you can define tests... You can then build each part - even in parallel - as you have the interface contracts and tests.
Thanks, Mike – that’s a brilliant breakdown!
I love the "spec-driven development" mindset you're advocating. The interface-first thinking especially resonates — it really forces clarity early on and makes it easier to test, parallelize, and scale. I’ve been guilty of jumping into implementation too soon before fully mapping out dataflows or boundaries, and your method feels like a great guardrail.
Curious — do you use any specific tools or templates for defining those interface contracts and flows? Or is it more freeform (e.g., diagrams + markdown)?
I mostly use json-schema to try to understand the structure of the data. Most of the time, the interfaces are subsets of the complete schema. The benefit is that being a text based format, LLMs are good at reasoning about it. It also means you don't get bogged down with the relationships in the database - SQL is quite verbose if you are using normalisation.
The other advantage is that should you want to keep it simple, you can just store your data in a json file on disk - makes backing up easy.
As to the flows etc. PlantUML and Mermaid are great for visualising things and are also text based - so same advantage for LLMs.
Loved this perspective. I think another problem we don’t talk enough about is impostor syndrome — sometimes I can finish a project, but I get stuck overthinking it.
Curious to know — what stops YOU from shipping a project once it's almost done?
I think I'll go with that. I have so many ideas, and sometimes having too many ideals makes it hard for me to decide on the next step.
Totally get that, Melody — having too many ideas can feel like both a gift and a curse 😅.Sometimes I just pick one and run with it, even if it’s not perfect. Momentum matters more than clarity at the start, at least for me.
Would love to hear what kind of ideas you’re juggling lately!
That relay runner analogy is spot on - I always wonder how many of my half-done ideas could thrive if I shared them. Have you actually tried handing off a project to someone, and how did it go?
Thanks, Dotallio! I’ve definitely thought about it—and once, I actually did hand one off. It was half-liberating, half-heartbreaking 😂 But seeing it grow in someone else’s hands was pretty cool. Might just do it more often. Have you ever passed a project baton yourself?
Been there with the endless half-done projects, man. Sharing the grind makes it a lot less heavy.
Absolutely, Nathan. It’s comforting to know we’re all in the same boat sometimes. Here’s to finishing at least one of those half-done projects this year! 💪😅