Episode #19 -- Release Early and Often

Available on your favorite podcast platform.

Show Notes:

  • which do you find more inspiring – a stagnant pond covered in algae or a fast-flowing mountain stream?
  • why should you share your work early and often?
  • Two scenarios
    • everything done in private and then we try to integrate at the end
    • continuous stream of work done in a transparent way
      • can exist inside companies as well as OSS projects
    • stagnant pond vs fast flowing mountain stream
  • why
    • builds trust
    • get feedback early
    • people can watch the work go by and optionally take a closer look if they are interested.
    • spreads knowledge
    • we do better work in public
    • injects energy into the team
    • no status meetings are required
  • how do you do this?
    • work on a Git branch, rebase, squash commits, force push, delete, etc
    • do batches of work in a pull request
    • small commits/PRs – monster commits/PR are exhausting to review (at least daily)
    • stream of commit messages tell a story how you got from point A → B
    • lead your work with documentation
  • objections
    • My code is not perfect
    • I don’t want to bother people
    • It is only an experiment and may get redone anyway
    • I’m not comfortable showing my work/process

See also: TMPDIR handbook