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It’s no secret that we are passionate about Tech for Good, and this passion is shared across the whole of 3 Sided Cube!
We all enjoy getting up in the morning to work on projects that change the world, but this is made a whole lot easier by the fact that our teams get along!
We’re pulling back the curtain on the synergy between two of the teams who work the closest…
The Front-End Development (FED) and Back-End Development (BED) teams!
Our Web Team Lead, Kev Borrill, and Back-End Development Team Lead, Tom Yeadon have the experience, the knowledge, and a bromance the whole office can’t deny.
So we wanted to pick their minds about everything they know, so that we can share their tips and tricks with you.
You’re also in for an extra treat because they recorded their full conversation into a podcast episode for you to feast your eyes and ears on!
More details on that later…
FED & BED Synergy
FED and BED go hand in hand.
One cannot live without the other!
At 3 Sided Cube, our BED team primarily builds database driven JSON APIs, whereas our FED team works on mostly website related tasks, executing the creative vision of our clients and the Design team.
So it’s in the best interest of everyone on the team (and the wider business) that FED and BED are on the same page.
Kev and Tom are a star-studded example of FED & BED synergy!
But not only do I think we do actually have a great bromance, I think it's because we've shown how well FED and BED can work together. Kev Borrill, Web Team Lead, 3 Sided Cube
RAD Energy
More acronyms, yay!
RAD stands for Rapid Application Development and has been around since the 70s as a methodology which then developed into RAD software in the 90s.
If you’re still not sure, Tom mentioned the great examples of Visual Basic 6.0 or FileMaker.
At 3 Sided Cube, we’ve found a balance that works well for us as an agency is applying RAD as 60% mindset and 40% tool.
So how do we build things quickly but maintain quality?
Tom and Kev focused on some topics that might save the day and help you…
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Scheming
Schema meetings are something that we’ve adopted to ensure we’ve got a solid foundation to which we build our software.
The focus is on two things:
‘Correct’ terminology
Technical foundations.
It’s all about striking the balance between having a plan, but also having the flexibility to adapt.
This is not planning to overthrow your FED and BED teams. Tom Yeadon, Back-End Development Team Lead, 3 Sided Cube
Terminology
How can you work as a team if there’s loads of misunderstandings or lengthy explanations to figure out what each person means? And that’s just internally!
When working with clients, it's also very important that you understand their terminology too.
But there is a solution…
A noun and verb exercise.
Tom describes the basic outline as:
Noun - Helps to roughly figure out the models.
Verb - API actions, such as ‘archive something’.
But! It’s important that, as a BED, you need to do this exercise with your FED team, so they can let you know whether ideas will actually work with FED considerations.
What are we actually talking about? What are we trying to solve? And it might just be something really simple, but that adds so much complexity if we're not using the right words. Kev Borrill, Web Team Lead, 3 Sided Cube
Technical foundations
Once you’ve got the terminology down, you can then focus on how to build relationship diagrams and database structures (for example).
What's on this page?
What's the user putting in?
What actions are we doing?
What are we displaying back to them?
And after all that scheming, everyone is on the same page, and there is a single source of truth!
But that’s a whole other topic for another day.
Emerging technology
We love technology!
It comes as part of being an app development and digital product company.
But there is a time and place to trial these new technologies, and it's not when you’ve got a tight deadline and a client is relying on you to deliver.
This is where low risk comes in as a part of ‘true RAD’.
Saving you time by focusing on delivering value to the client, shipping features and doing it in a reliable way.
This also benefits the BED and FED synergy as it means the codebase is relatively easy for someone on the other team to understand, because it is easy to read.
You don’t need (or want) to be leaning into each others’ codebases or stacks too much, otherwise why would we have specialised teams?
But keeping an eye can be really handy to know what each team is doing and help further the appreciation between the teams.
And there’s even more benefits of utilising standardised frameworks across BED and FED, such as the ease of onboarding new developers to a project!
Reinventing the wheel is really cool and fun sometimes and it's a great thing to do for learning and experimentation. You just don't do it when the client's got a tight deadline and you're the person saving the day. Tom Yeadon, Yeadon, Back-End Development Team Lead, 3 Sided Cube
OpenAPI Documentation
Introducing the glue that holds Kev and Tom together!
(As well as BED and FED in general)
So what is it?
In your back-end repository you have a file.
This file is an open API specification schema that describes all of your API endpoints and which HTTP methods each of those endpoints takes, the parameters, and you also document what it returns.
This means that every API endpoint in your back-end is listed somewhere.
You can use a Word or txt file, but the beauty of OpenAPI is that it's documented and is kind of a schema.
If you validate the document and stick to it, then magic can happen!
If it's in your version control it's a lot easier to ensure this is up to date and when it gets deployed the FED team can then generate documentation beautifully.
And we’ve come full circle!
Because the schema meeting we talked about earlier should allow for the conversation about ensuring the OpenAPI documentation is up to date.
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Back-end automated testing
Tom’s bonus topic!
Although they take time to set up, using automated tests can be so useful when you’re moving quickly, because you can also break things quickly!
Having a few, select automated tests can check the important elements quickly.
Knowing where and when to write the test is important, but taking 5 to 10 extra minutes to write them as you go can make a huge difference.
I think it's again, getting into the habit of it. I think once you're in the habit of writing tests, it's actually, I find it quite enjoyable once you're doing it. Kev Borrill, Web Team Lead, 3 Sided Cube
TL;DL
(‘Too long didn’t listen’ courtesy of Kev):
Your BED and FED teams must have excellent synergy if you want them to be successful,
Have a kind of boring’ framework, a kind of boring stack, and some amazing terminology,
If you're a business shipping stuff, you probably want to embrace some aspects of RAD,
Back yourself up with some automated tests and OpenAPI tools.
Establish your terminology in schema meetings,
And if you do all of that, your project stands a really good chance of success!
Join the conversation!
Tune in to the full episode below to hear all of the details and witness the BED and FED Bromance synergy for yourself.
For more things tech for good, stay tuned for our latest blog posts or shout us a holla to get in touch with us, we would love to hear from you 💚
Published on 14 November 2024, last updated on 14 November 2024