The 10 Commandments of Modern Web Development

Communication is key as a Product Manager with a software company. Recently, I worked on and published the following “commandments” of modern web development to be distributed to our teams. Every modern web developer (or application) should follow these ten commandments.

There are fancy programming terms that can be thrown out for all of these; however, my goal was to put these in common terms that software professionals (and even you) might understand.

1. Always support 99% of internet users, regardless of browser, browser version, or operating system. Adjust accordingly and always be prepared with beta releases.
2. Always utilize XHTML compliant code for the application, reference by the DTD and cross-browser compliant Cascading Style Sheets for all layout styles and application images.
3. Always reference text and strings through reference elements that support any character set and never require a build.
4. Always reference dates and times in GMT that allows any user to modify the output how they wish.
5. Always build an integration element to every feature.
6. Always build to RFC standards (text emails, HTML emails, email addresses, domain references, etc.)
7. Always build modularly. If there is more than one option anywhere in the application, you should be able to add more without requiring a build.
8. If more than one part of the application does it, all portions of the application must reference a single point.
9. Never recreate what you can buy and always adjust our application to support what you bought.
10. If users can do it, then we support it. If they should not do it, we must validate for it.