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Link: How I build software quickly

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I recently stumbled upon this blog post titled "How I build software quickly" from .

I highly recommend giving the whole post a read, but these two points really stood out to me:

Build “top to bottom”. For example, in an application, I prefer to scaffold the UI before the business logic, even if lots of stuff is hard-coded. I’ve sometimes written business logic first, which I later discarded once the UI came into play, because I miscalculated how it would be used. Build the top layer first—the “dream code” I want to write or the API I wish existed—rather than trying to build the “bottom” layer first. It’s easier to make the right API decisions when I start with how it will be used. It can also be easier to gather feedback on.

Extract smaller changes while working. Sometimes, during a rough draft, I realize that some improvement needs to be made elsewhere in the code. Maybe there’s a dependency that needs updating. Before finishing the final draft, make a separate patch to just update that dependency. This is useful on its own and will benefit the upcoming change. I can push it for code review separately, and hopefully, it’ll be merged by the time I finish my final draft.

The first point aligns well with my "vertical slice" methodology, and the second is something I've been trying to improve upon in my own development process over the past year or so!


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Matt Hamlin

Matt Hamlin

@matthamlin.me

New micropost, trying my best to start sharing some of the links I stumble upon and read (hopefully with some additional insight too):

matthamlin.me/2025/july/li...
Link: How I build software quickly

Link: How I build software quickly

https://matthamlin.me/2025/july/link-how-i-build-software-quickly
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