jherr Development Workflow

A systematic approach to building software iteratively, inspired by Jack Harrington (jherr) and the classic software development principle.

Core Philosophy

Development should happen in three distinct phases:

1. Make it work - Get a working solution first
2. Make it right - Refactor and improve code quality
3. Make it fast - Optimize for performance when needed

Each phase has different priorities and success criteria. Moving to the next phase too early causes problems.

Phase 1: Make It Work

Goal: Create a minimal working solution that demonstrates the feature works end-to-end.

Priorities:

• Get something functional as quickly as possible
• Focus on the happy path
• Use straightforward approaches
• Hardcode values if it helps move faster
• Skip error handling that isn't critical
• Accept code duplication temporarily

With TDD (Test-Driven Development):

• Write tests for the core happy path first
• Get those fundamental tests passing
• Defer edge case tests to Phase 2
• Use Red-Green cycle: failing test → minimal code → passing test
• Tests serve as proof the feature works, not comprehensive coverage yet

Without TDD:

• Build the feature directly
• Manual testing or simple validation is acceptable
• Add automated tests in Phase 2

Success criteria:

• The feature demonstrates the intended behavior
• Core functionality works for the primary use case
• You can show it to someone and they understand what it does
• (TDD) Happy path tests are green

Common mistakes:

• Trying to handle every edge case immediately
• Building abstractions before understanding the problem
• Optimizing before knowing if the approach works
• Adding features beyond the core requirement
• (TDD) Writing exhaustive test suites before understanding the problem

Phase 2: Make It Right

Goal: Refactor the working code into maintainable, well-structured software.

Priorities:

• Remove code duplication (DRY principle)
• Add proper error handling and edge cases
• Extract reusable functions and components
• Improve naming and code clarity
• Add type safety (TypeScript types, Python type hints)
• Write tests for critical paths
• Add documentation where behavior is non-obvious

With TDD:

• Add edge case tests now
• Test error conditions and boundary cases
• Refactor with confidence (tests prevent regressions)
• Use TDD's refactor step to improve design
• Achieve good test coverage of important behaviors

Without TDD:

• Add automated tests for critical functionality
• Focus on integration and key unit tests
• Tests enable safe refactoring

Success criteria:

• Code is readable and maintainable
• Common errors are handled gracefully
• Components have clear, single responsibilities
• Tests cover the main functionality
• Other developers can understand and modify the code
• (TDD) Comprehensive test suite with edge cases covered

Common mistakes:

• Over-abstracting before patterns emerge
• Premature optimization
• Perfect test coverage on first pass
• Adding speculative features "just in case"
• (TDD) Testing implementation details instead of behavior

Phase 3: Make It Fast

Goal: Optimize performance based on actual measured bottlenecks.

When to enter this phase:

• Performance testing reveals actual issues
• Users report slowness in production
• Profiling identifies clear bottlenecks
• You have specific performance requirements to meet

Priorities:

• Profile first to find actual bottlenecks
• Optimize the slowest parts first (80/20 rule)
• Measure impact of each optimization
• Consider caching strategies
• Evaluate algorithmic improvements
• Look for unnecessary re-renders/re-computations

With TDD:

• Add performance tests to capture benchmarks
• Ensure existing tests still pass after optimization
• Use tests to verify optimizations don't break behavior
• Consider adding specific performance regression tests

Success criteria:

• Measured performance meets requirements
• Optimizations target actual bottlenecks
• Performance improvements are documented
• Code remains maintainable
• (TDD) All tests still pass, performance tests validate improvements

Common mistakes:

• Optimizing without measuring first
• Making code complex for negligible gains
• Optimizing parts that aren't bottlenecks
• Sacrificing maintainability unnecessarily
• (TDD) Breaking tests during optimization without realizing behavioral changes

Workflow Guidelines

Starting a new feature

1. Clarify the core requirement
2. Sketch the simplest working approach
3. Build Phase 1: Make it work
4. Demo/validate it works
5. Proceed to Phase 2

When something breaks

• Fix in the current phase
• Don't jump back to "make it work" mode unnecessarily
• Maintain the quality level achieved

Knowing when to move forward

• Phase 1 → 2: When core functionality works
• Phase 2 → 3: When you have performance requirements AND measurements showing issues
• Staying in Phase 2: Most code should stay here indefinitely - clean, working code doesn't need optimization

Red flags

• Writing complex abstractions in Phase 1
• Discussing performance in Phase 1
• Skipping Phase 2 entirely
• Entering Phase 3 without measurements

TDD Integration

This workflow pairs naturally with Test-Driven Development:

How they complement each other:

• TDD answers "how" - Write test first, then implementation
• jherr answers "when" - When to refactor, when to optimize

Phase mapping:

• Phase 1: Red-Green cycle for happy path (minimal tests, minimal code)
• Phase 2: Add edge case tests, refactor with test safety net
• Phase 3: Performance tests validate optimizations don't break behavior

Best practices:

• In Phase 1, write just enough tests to prove it works
• In Phase 2, expand test coverage to include edge cases
• In Phase 3, ensure tests pass after each optimization
• Tests are documentation of expected behavior across all phases

If using TDD throughout:

• Maintain Red-Green-Refactor cycle in all phases
• Let test failures guide implementation
• Use refactor step as your Phase 2 signal
• Add performance assertions in Phase 3 only

Examples

Example: Building a user search feature

Phase 1 - Make it work:

// Just get it working
function searchUsers(query: string) {
  return users.filter(user => 
    user.name.toLowerCase().includes(query.toLowerCase())
  );
}

Phase 2 - Make it right:

// Add proper handling and structure
function searchUsers(query: string): User[] {
  if (!query.trim()) return [];
  
  const normalizedQuery = query.toLowerCase().trim();
  
  return users.filter(user => 
    user.name.toLowerCase().includes(normalizedQuery) ||
    user.email.toLowerCase().includes(normalizedQuery)
  );
}

Phase 3 - Make it fast (only if measurements show it's slow):

// Optimize with debouncing and indexing
const searchIndex = buildSearchIndex(users);

const debouncedSearch = debounce((query: string) => {
  if (!query.trim()) return [];
  
  const normalizedQuery = query.toLowerCase().trim();
  return searchIndex.query(normalizedQuery);
}, 300);

Example with TDD: Building a shopping cart

Phase 1 - Make it work (with TDD):

// Test: Happy path only
test('adds item to cart', () => {
  const cart = new ShoppingCart();
  cart.addItem({ id: 1, name: 'Widget', price: 10 });
  expect(cart.total()).toBe(10);
});

// Implementation: Simplest thing that works
class ShoppingCart {
  items = [];
  
  addItem(item) {
    this.items.push(item);
  }
  
  total() {
    return this.items.reduce((sum, item) => sum + item.price, 0);
  }
}

Phase 2 - Make it right (with TDD):

// Tests: Add edge cases and error handling
test('handles empty cart', () => {
  const cart = new ShoppingCart();
  expect(cart.total()).toBe(0);
});

test('prevents adding invalid items', () => {
  const cart = new ShoppingCart();
  expect(() => cart.addItem(null)).toThrow();
});

test('removes items correctly', () => {
  const cart = new ShoppingCart();
  cart.addItem({ id: 1, name: 'Widget', price: 10 });
  cart.removeItem(1);
  expect(cart.total()).toBe(0);
});

// Implementation: Refactored with types and validation
interface CartItem {
  id: number;
  name: string;
  price: number;
}

class ShoppingCart {
  private items: CartItem[] = [];
  
  addItem(item: CartItem): void {
    if (!item || typeof item.price !== 'number') {
      throw new Error('Invalid item');
    }
    this.items.push(item);
  }
  
  removeItem(id: number): void {
    this.items = this.items.filter(item => item.id !== id);
  }
  
  total(): number {
    return this.items.reduce((sum, item) => sum + item.price, 0);
  }
}

Phase 3 - Make it fast (only if needed):

// Performance test
test('handles large cart efficiently', () => {
  const cart = new ShoppingCart();
  const start = performance.now();
  
  for (let i = 0; i < 10000; i++) {
    cart.addItem({ id: i, name: `Item ${i}`, price: i });
  }
  
  const total = cart.total();
  const duration = performance.now() - start;
  
  expect(duration).toBeLessThan(100); // Should complete in <100ms
  expect(total).toBe(49995000);
});

// Optimized implementation with memoization
class ShoppingCart {
  private items: CartItem[] = [];
  private cachedTotal: number | null = null;
  
  addItem(item: CartItem): void {
    if (!item || typeof item.price !== 'number') {
      throw new Error('Invalid item');
    }
    this.items.push(item);
    this.cachedTotal = null; // Invalidate cache
  }
  
  total(): number {
    if (this.cachedTotal !== null) {
      return this.cachedTotal;
    }
    this.cachedTotal = this.items.reduce((sum, item) => sum + item.price, 0);
    return this.cachedTotal;
  }
}

Key Principles

• Resist premature optimization - Most code never needs Phase 3
• Iterate quickly - Feedback loops are more valuable than perfect first attempts
• Measure, don't guess - Performance problems must be measured
• Maintainability matters - Code is read more than written
• Ship working software - A working MVP beats a perfect plan
• TDD enhances the workflow - Tests provide safety nets for refactoring and prove behavior doesn't change during optimization
• Test behavior, not implementation - Focus on what the code does, not how it does it

When NOT to use this workflow

This workflow may not fit when:

• Building safety-critical systems (correctness first)
• Working with strict performance requirements upfront
• Making small fixes to existing code
• Prototyping/exploring (stay in Phase 1)
• The "right" solution is obvious from the start

Related Skills

• /tdd-integration - TDD Red-Green-Refactor cycle that complements this workflow
• /testing-best-practice - Testing philosophy and patterns for quality tests