Hello, everyone! Sorry for the huge blitz…
Summary of current situation - details to follow - :
- Only developer for an extremely small “government agency”
- Main duties - at the moment - include:
- Upkeep of legacy software written using Delphi - trying to retire these, ASAP -
- Writing new software/services, so far (mostly) in .NET/C# - command-line and WinForms - and MEVN/VENoM-Stack
Challenges:
- New (01-2020) to MEVN/VENoM-Stack, Delphi, and Winforms - background is in ASP.NET MVC Web Development, mostly
- Solely responsible for all security concerns in new/existing custom software
- Microsoft/Windows Server-only Development and Production environment
- No one to perform code-reviews/testing/etc., other than myself
- Almost everything on-prem - cloud-anything frowned upon
- Getting/staying organized - files, notes, and website links, mostly –. The mess getting bigger every day
- Keeping tools/settings synched across Desktop, Laptop, Dev Server, and Prod Server
Questions:
- #1 concern at the moment : What tools/services should I request in the upcoming budget-year? My slice of the IT budget will be fairly small, I’m certain. Specifically, what tools/services would you recommend to address the challenges above, given the summary previous?
- What groups - other than this one - would you advise that I join (or attempt to join)?
- What have I not thought about, that’s likely to bite me?
Details:
I was hired late last year to be an Application Developer, with side assignments as a DB Admin, OTS-software consultant, and a bit of everything else. It’s a job that dreams are made of, but it’s also extremely daunting and overwhelming.
Aside from the usual turmoil and confusion that comes with starting a new job, since I’ve been hired, there has been a change of leadership - my boss, Director of IT - and the covid-19 crises - been working from home since March. It’s been “interesting”.
As for the actual work, aside from writing code, I am responsible for:
- gathering requirements
- designing the UI/UX
- documentation; both “internal” docs for IT and whomever may inherit my code
- including my future self, of course - , and “external” usage docs for whomever will be using whatever software/service I create
- setting up and maintaining development and production environments
- creating and maintaining self-hosted git repositories
- any testing I might have time for
- a host of other odds and ends, including resolving any Tickets that may full under my realm of knowledge, and things that I’ve forgotten to include here
I use OneNote a lot, but it is not organized well. I’m trying to do most of my “official” documentation in basic HTML/CSS, so that we can eventually work it into a usable KB on our Intranet, but I find this slow going – been thinking of using TinyMCE to make this go faster.
Current tool/service-set:
- Visual Studio Code; …with quite a few extensions
- Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition
- Notepad++
- Delphi (10.3, 10.1, XE7)
- MongoDB; with Compass Community
- SQL Server Management Studio
- Vue Devtools plugin for Chrome
- Packet Sender
- PowerShell
- Git
- Sourcetree
- PuTTY
- WinSCP
- Inkscape
- Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019
- Trello
- Greenshot
- HandBrake
- Gimp
- Blender
- Audacity
- OBS Studio
- Speechnotes
- CodeBeautify
- MindMup; free account
- Figma; have not had a chance to use – just have a free account there
- InVision; have not had a chance to use – just have a free account there
Any advice on how to rock this job without going crazy would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!!!