Bollı•nn.

Another boring old developer summary

I've been building for the web for 25 years now (2026). That's fun, especially if you remember your first business PC, your first HTML and PHP pages, and your first clients actually signing something. Things changed a lot in this industry several times, however, the most interesting lessons are not about technology, but mostly about product and business. You'd probably pick this up in 3-4 years. I needed 25, but better late than never.

Fellowship Of The Ring Bilbo Baggins GIF

If you're still here: the list. Things about development that changed my mind over that time.

  1. Everything can be improved - but it doesn't mean it should be.Legacy code may be ok. This new, brilliant feature may not bring any value or money. This Shopify adapter is shitty, but time-wise, we'd better ship something more important.
  2. Failures are part of the game.Accept that you, your team, and your company will make mistakes. Just don't repeat them too often. Breaking the production database once this year is enough.
  3. Great ideas won't make you rich.You will need a combination of market, timing, distribution, and luck. I built several side projects, but none worked as a business. That's the lesson I'm still learning!
  4. There is no perfect tech stack.jQuery may be ok. WordPress may be fast. This great XML Salesforce integration script from 2001 still does the job. Check the gains, not the options.
  5. People matter.Talk to them sometimes 🙂 Clients, managers, designers, marketing - they have (or at least they should) the same goal as you - to make the product better. Some have a weird way of showing that, but generally it works.
  6. Don't be the smartest.It's not about winning discussions. Being smart enough is ok and doesn't demotivate others. You can be a valuable team member, not necessarily in the top 1%.
  7. Data is never clean.Webhooks fail, scripts miss things, people click wrong things. If you can still rely on the data when making decisions, it's good enough.
  8. Simplicity is the most difficult thing.In UI, in code, in communication. Simplify wherever possible. Explain simply, code in small simple chunks, build simple interfaces. Spend years on that.
  9. Stay up to date.Be curious, this industry is magic. Read that article, check what this new tool is, talk to somebody smarter than you (like your dog).
  10. An active codebase has to be messy.And it's ok! Something is not quite right if you spend time only polishing code to perfection instead of shipping.