Changing Development Model and Practices

Question

I am in the process of (finally) migrating our websites and applications from ASP.NET 1.1 to ASP.NET 2.0. AS part of this process I am trying to assess ways that our development practices can be optimized. I am part of a two man team, but wold like to optimize our process so that it is ready for growth.

Things I have considered so far:

• Moving from SourceSafe to Subversion
• Replacing our ad-hoc develop-locally-then-push-to-production model with a true Development/Integration/Staging/Production model
• Creating a documentation system

From the answers:

• Consider continuous integration
• Perhaps implement user stories and test cases
• Be wary of implementing a process for the sake of it, there is no one-size-fits-all solution

Are there any specific things I should keep in mind during this process?

Also, are there any pitfalls (things that I might do now that will be trouble down the road) that I should be aware of?

Answer 1

I would consider investing in a continuous integration solution using one of the open source CI servers such as the ones often discussed on this site if you aren't doing this already.

Follow up: The only specific advice I could offer without more information is to not implement something for the sake of it. There isn't a one size fits all continuous integration process. Pick a CI toolset that you are comfortable with and then look at your team and the way you work and see what could make your lives a little better. Start small. If you are using VSS and find that you could be more productive with the ability to branch and merge features then consider something like SVN. If you are spending time deploying different versions of your website to servers for testing consider a simplified staging model and automate the deployment. The mistake I have made in the past is implementing things that ultimately provide little value to the particular team I am working with (reports they don't read, metrics they don't care about, unit tests they don't intend to maintain).

Answer 2

Probably a continuos integration environment will prove most useful, especially for a small team where communication is upclose and personal. As for documentation, user stories, test cases and the code itself should suffice.