Profitable ExpressionEngine Add-on Development

A talk about the bit between getting hired to develop an ExpressionEngine add-on, and actually making money.

Transcript

1. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Profitable Add-on Development Stephen Lewis @monooso
2. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 ... Get hired to build add-on PROFIT! £
3. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 “We need a shopping cart add-on...”
4. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Establish The Known Knowns
5. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Nothing Beats a Good List
6. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Environment Checklist
7. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 ๏ Apache or IIS. ๏ PHP version. ๏ PHP modules & extensions. ๏ MySQL version. ๏ ExpressionEngine version. ๏ Third-party EE add-ons. Environment Checklist
8. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Add-on Requirements Checklist
9. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 ๏ Multiple Site Manager. ๏ External events. ๏ Admin requirements. ๏ Reporting requirements. ๏ Data export. Add-on Requirements Checklist
10. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Client Competency Checklist
11. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 ๏ Does the client know ExpressionEngine from a hole in the ground? Client Competency Checklist
12. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 (No)
13. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Write the Documentation First
14. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Inconceivable!
15. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Technical Spec. Driven Documentation Driven Describes what the add-on does. Describes how to use the add-on. Exercise in box ticking. Exposes missing requirements. “Done” is open to interpretation. Done when it works as documented.
16. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Keep It Simple
17. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 ๏ Usage instructions. ๏ One-to-two pages, maximum. ๏ Basecamp message. ๏ GitHub repository wiki. Keep It Simple
18. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Eliminate Busy Work
19. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Create Admin Scripts
20. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 ๏ Initialise Git repository. https://github.com/experience/gitgo ๏ Create symlinks. ๏ Populate or reset database. ๏ Populate or reset Channels. ๏ “The Productive Programmer” http://oreil.ly/eeuk_productive Create Admin Scripts
21. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Build a Code Library
22. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Build an Add-on Builder
23. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Pros Cons Pkg.io Custom Templates and Scripts Custom Add-on Builder Zero setup. Better than nothing. Very generic. Lots of tweaking. Won’t grow with you. Customised. Quick to create. Some tweaking. Difficult to manage. Custom fit. Hit the ground running. More up-front effort. Build an Add-on Builder
24. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Demo
25. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Summary Use kick-off checklists. Write the documentation first. Eliminate the busy work.
26. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Thank You Find me at experiencehq.co.uk github.com/experience @monooso stephen@experiencehq.co.uk
27. Experience Internet EEUK 2011 Questions? Find me at experiencehq.co.uk github.com @monooso stephen@experiencehq.co.uk