WordCamp Atlanta 2016 this past weekend and it was an a blast. I met a lot of great, incredibly smart people, and had the opportunity to hang out with some people who I’ve known online for a while.

The Truth About Development Environments

Doing the best I can to look like I know what I’m talking about :).

I’ll do a full write-up about the event later.

For now, I wanted to share my slides and my notes about the talk I gave on development environments titled The Truth About The Environment.

The Truth About Development Environments

The presentation is specifically geared towards beginner and intermediate developers and sits at a high-level versus mentioning any particular tool (except for one).

First, the slides (and if you can’t see them in your reader then you can grab them from this page).

Secondly, the gist of the talk is as follows:

  • If you’re building websites or solutions or maintaining code you’ve inherited then you need to have three environments set up: development, staging, production.
  • Eventually, it’s important to use version control to manage your source code and version your projects.
  • Deployment tools are useful. There is a variety from which to choose (I like DeployBot).
  • If you’re running a small business or handling projects like those mentioned above, it’s important to have some project management in place. It can be something as simple as email, something like Freedcamp, or something like Basecamp.
  • It’s a constant stream of learning so where you are today won’t be where you are tomorrow permitting you continually push forward to find out more.

I enjoyed giving the talk and sincerely appreciate everyone who asked questions, participated, and who came for the talk.