Pillars of Modern Development

Quality Starts in Frontend: My Daily Best Practices

Staying updated with frontend best practices is essential, and these are the ones I apply day by day. My approach focuses on ensuring performance and a great user experience:

• Reusable Components (Component-First Approach): I think in terms of reusable components from the project's inception.
• User Optimization: Image optimization is crucial for me; I always use modern formats like WebP or AVIF and implement lazy loading to accelerate loading.
• Accessibility (a11y) and SEO: I don't leave SEO for the end. I make sure to use semantic HTML always and consider accessibility from day one. This includes using attributes like aria-label on interactive elements.
• Build Performance: To improve performance, I apply techniques like Code splitting, Tree shaking and seek to minimize the bundle size.
• Developer Experience (DX): Implementing TypeScript is essential in my workflow to avoid bugs and improve DX through the use of types.
• Modern Styling: Regarding CSS, I consider the use of CSS Grid and Flexbox indispensable, and I've found that tools like Tailwind CSS can significantly accelerate development.

Effective Collaboration: The FrontEnd/BackEnd Flow

In my experience, effective collaboration between FrontEnd and BackEnd is crucial for any project's success. I've often witnessed disagreements or confusion about roles, and that's why I seek to establish a clear workflow:

• Clear Role Definition: I understand that, as FrontEnd, my responsibility is the user interface, experience, and data presentation, including client-side performance optimization. Meanwhile, BackEnd handles server logic, data management, and creating EndPoints for resource consumption.
• Continuous Communication: Communication must be fluid and constant, clear and bidirectional. I've learned that lack of understanding of the other team's context and requirements is a recurring communication problem.
• Joint Design of Data and EndPoints: Data model definition is a key task that requires collaboration. I seek to work closely with BackEnd in creating EndPoints. A modern approach I like to apply is to define, as FrontEnd, the data models I need for my interfaces, and then provide them to BackEnd so they can create EndPoints according to those models, allowing progress without having to wait.
• Rigorous Documentation: My leader or Manager has emphasized that we should leave nothing to free interpretation. Therefore, I strive to ensure that EndPoints are properly documented and clearly linked with use cases or application interfaces.

My Strategy Against Technical Debt

As a developer, I accept that technical debt is a real concept, coined by Ward Cunningham, that describes additional future work cost generated by having made quick or incomplete decisions in the past. These decisions often occur under deadline pressure.

The real cost is not just technical: technical debt affects my productivity, increases bugs, and can generate hidden risks like security vulnerabilities.

My plan to manage technical debt, especially in legacy code that's scary to touch, follows these steps:

1. Map the Terrain: Before touching a single line, I act like a detective. I take time to read the code and document the complete flow or use case. I use simple diagrams (squares and arrows) to build my mental schema of how the code works and detect parts to improve.
2. Build a Safety Net (Testing): Without tests, we're flying blind. Unit and integration tests are my first line of defense to ensure my modifications don't alter the application's behavior. The absence of tests prevents measuring and guaranteeing the real quality of software.
3. Safe Refactoring: In legacy code where I don't know the business logic well, I use tools like Approval Testing. This allows me to take a snapshot of the current code result and ensure that any subsequent change maintains that same logic.
4. Continuous Prevention: To avoid generating more debt, I ensure that work is considered "done" (Definition of Done) only if it meets technical quality criteria, including test coverage and refactoring if necessary.

Personal Conclusion

I've learned that the ultimate goal is continuous learning. When we face complicated situations or errors in a sprint, I use the Post Mortem technique (or Release retrospective). In these sessions, my approach is transparency: we document what failed, the impact, and the lessons learned, without looking for culprits, but seeking which processes failed.

Managing technical debt and applying these quality practices is not a luxury or a whim, it's a smart investment that ensures the long-term sustainability of my projects.

I hope this note becomes a valuable resource in your journey as a developer and that together we can continue learning about these fundamental pillars: frontend quality, effective collaboration, and strategic technical debt management.