Ask HN: If you could restart your current project, what would you do different?

10 points by hoodoof ↗ HN
If you can explain why, it will be more valuable to readers.

9 comments

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My project is built with ReactJS. I'd have started with TypeScript I think. I'd like to switch but I bet there would be enough errors and pain not warrant the change at this point.

Everything else is pretty much OK.

vanilla Node.JS instead of Meteor, Vue.js instead of Blaze
I might have written my last project in Python rather than Go. Go is a great language in its niche, but it's overkill for a run-of-the-mill web CRUD API on a low-traffic site. Flask or Django would have got the project done in half the time. The front end was in React, which was fun, but I was still climbing the learning curve and made a few mistakes I wouldn't have made today.
Same experience here. Prototyping in Python remains faster. The possibility to inspect variables on the go in a notebook are an invaluable feature of this programming language. Afterwards you can always implement the time critical components in Go.
Probably add a couple more subdirectories. Now that I have a fair few files I want to go back in time and put the source under src/ (but at the same time I hate that). At least I had the sense to use some subdirs for slightly separate components. Also, I want to import some third-party code which needs to be kept somewhere.
Better structure, different (better/smaller) deps, and much different code I'll never do now that it works already. I'm thinking of re-doing the whole project once it can be called a `full` version, but that probably won't happen as 'hey, if it works...'.
Use TDD methodology for getting clear picture of customer requirements. Get exact design and feture specification.

Have written agreement that any furthet change will be charged extra.

After that start write a code.

Instead of standalone app create web app with thin client for workstation.