Best Practices for Feature Waterfall (Tips from the Experts)

Okay, so, I’ve been messing around with this thing called “feature waterfall,” and let me tell you, it’s been a bit of a journey. I started by reading up on what other folks have said about using flags more effectively. The idea is, you know, you wanna take a data-driven approach to make sure you are launching the best stuff. Not just throwing things out there and hoping for the best.

First, I tried to apply some of the ‘best practices’ I found. One said something about clarity, so I started by making sure I was crystal clear on what I wanted each feature flag to control. Simple enough, right? I decided to start small. I had this new button I was working on, and I wanted to test it out without showing it to everyone.

Best Practices for Feature Waterfall (Tips from the Experts)

I dove into the code and started adding a basic conditional. You know, just a simple if-else statement. If the flag is on, show the button; if it’s off, keep it hidden. I kept running into an annoying type error. It just kept saying ‘cannot be converted to type *’. After a bunch of trial and error, I added that .ToString and finally got rid of that error.

  • Set up the flag: Created a new flag in my system. Named it something like “new_button_test”.
  • Added the conditional: Wrapped the button code with my if-else, checking the flag’s status.
  • Tested it locally: Flipped the flag on and off, made sure the button appeared and disappeared as expected. Everything was fine!

Then I wanted to see what it looked like in a larger flow, like a waterfall of features. I added a couple more flags for other parts of the page I was building, but I only added them to my local development environment. This way I could try all the features working together, flip them on and off, and see how they play with each other.

Next, I started thinking about how to roll this out for real. I read a bit about speeding up software delivery, which is always a good thing. The idea is to make sure you can quickly push things out, and I figure this feature waterfall thing is part of that. You don’t want to be stuck with old code just because you’re afraid to release new stuff.

To be honest, I’m still figuring out the best way to handle a bunch of flags at once. The more I add, the trickier it gets to keep track of everything. The goal is to turn some features on, some off, and test different combinations in different environments. It’s a bit of work, but I started with just a few flags, and I’m slowly adding more as I get comfortable.

It’s not perfect yet, but I’m getting there. I figured I’d share my experience so far, in case it helps anyone else who’s trying to get a handle on this feature waterfall thing. It feels like it has potential, but it definitely requires some careful planning and a whole lot of testing!

Best Practices for Feature Waterfall (Tips from the Experts)

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