Cowboy coding

A cowboy types on a laptop while riding a bucking bronco in a rodeo

It's commonly agreed that one should refrain from making changes on a "live" website, and instead use various techniques to make changes in some offline location and then push them to production. I do this for most of my own sites, and it's often required at large organizations. But it's not the only approach. I was recently surprised to discover that a number of web developers that I respect and admire maintain sites without an automated push technique. They'll figure out how to do something offline, then recreate it by hand on the live site.

I wouldn't recommend it for most situations, but it's important to note that it's not impossible. It's better than NOT getting something down.

I've even seen locked-down situations where people are editing on the live site anyway, because that's the only way to get something done. While you probably want to avoid having too much of this sort of thing, be aware that if you simply forbid it, it might happen anyway, so it's probably better to be aware and open about that. #drupal #webdevelopment #31daysofsimplifyingdrupal