Will Little @wclittle Subscribe

Managing Director at Prota Ventures.
I'm a bioengineer-turned-software-developer and venture builder/investor. Learn more about me professionally on LinkedIn, personally here, and check out the podcast I host, Ventures.

Featured Topics

Other Topics

+ Show
Topic:   Software Development
 Will Little

Jun 17, 2016
Software Development Redux

Evolution toward one-way data flow: A quick introduction to Redux

So you’re starting to wake up and realize that React is seriously winning. Perhaps you’ve also heard about Redux but never bothered to dive in to understand what it is and why you should use it. Well, now is the time to get up to speed and get in the game. I’ll give you a quick back-story then dive into some code.
Will Little

May 16, 2016
Startups Software Development Product Management

Startups: How to set a realistic timeline when building a software product

“Sure, we'll have that done in three weeks.” says the engineer. The marketer rolls her eyes, of course, and expects it in five. Eleven weeks later, it's delivered (and it's not very good). After an additional seven weeks of ironing out the basic bugs and UX kinks, marketing finally feels comfortable promoting it. Why didn't the engineer just say “about 20 weeks” and aim for delivering a tad early?
Will Little

May 5, 2016
Startups Software Development Redux Ruby on Rails React

Seven reasons why a Rails, Redux, React, and React Native stack is fantastic for new startups

Here are the reasons why I'm all-in with this software stack.

Will Little

Feb 28, 2016
Software Development Redux React

Adding Webpack with Hot Module Replacement to speed up Redux/React/Sass development within a Rails5-app

Piggy-backing on my previous post "Rails5, ActionCable, Redux, and React: Walking through an example chat application" I was curious how difficult it would be to spin up a webpack server with hot module replacement (HMR) alongside Rails (i.e. firing it up on another port) to speed up development of the Redux/React/Sass parts of the app.
Will Little

Dec 28, 2015
Software Development Redux Ruby on Rails React

Rails, ActionCable, Redux, and React: Walking through an example chat application

I spent some time over the holiday break wrapping my head around Rails with Redux. This will be an interesting stack to consider.
Will Little

Dec 22, 2015
Startups Software Development Visual Design Product Management

Building a new web product: How to best setup engineers AND creatives for a win

Pre-launch startup operations are always chaotic. That being said, equipped with your idea, team, market analysis, customer personas, early validation via surveys and interviews, and a brief overview statement (yes, do all that first), there is something simple you can do to setup your engineers and creatives for a win.
Will Little

Dec 22, 2014
Software Development

Clarifying the 5+ roles of a “Front-End Web Developer”

Anyone who has looked for a job in this area understands there is widespread confusion about who does what when it comes to designing user experiences (UX) and building user interfaces (UI) in a web browser.
Will Little

Dec 7, 2014
Software Development Ruby on Rails

How to build a simple email sign up form with Ruby on Rails

Continuing our Introduction to Web & Mobile Development tutorial series, here we'll learn how to build a simple email sign up feature. Unless you have strong business reasons to require users to only sign up via an Oauth provider such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc., it's best to at least allow your users to sign up directly with an email address.
Will Little

Jul 12, 2014
Software Development JavaScript

How to merge HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into your Rails app

Continuing forward in our introduction to web and mobile development tutorial series, here we'll learn how to merge into our Rails app the basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that our UI designer (Tim) quickly built for us.
Will Little

Dec 22, 2013
Software Development Ruby on Rails

How to setup a Rails app for Test-Driven- and Behavior-Driven Development with Rspec and Capybara

Continuing forward in our introduction to web and mobile development tutorial series, here we'll learn how to prep our Rails app to begin writing code in a Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) paradigm.
Will Little

Jun 16, 2013
Software Development Ruby on Rails

How to design and prep a Ruby on Rails model architecture

Moving along in our web and mobile development series, here we'll discuss the process of prepping Ruby on Rails models before receiving HTML views, CSS, and initial JavaScript files (i.e. the “cutups”) from your designer to merge in to your app.
Will Little

May 11, 2013
Startups Software Development Visual Design

How to work with a visual designer to efficiently build mockups for your app

Next up in our intro to web and mobile development series, here we'll discuss how to move from wireframes to more detailed images of your user interface (i.e. the “mockups”). This may sound obvious, but the actual creation of mockups should be reserved for the most talented visual designer on your team. If you don't have a legit person for this, recruit one before attempting to move forward here (seriously).
Will Little

Apr 5, 2013
Startups Software Development Visual Design

How to build and iterate wireframes for modern app development

Moving forward in our web and mobile development introduction series, here we'll briefly walk through the process of building wireframes based on the UI Spec and UX Flow Chart we put together previously. Wireframe construction usually goes faster if the designer is the one doing the work, but regardless it should be a collaborative process with the entire founding team of your startup.
Will Little

Mar 18, 2013
Startups Software Development

How to create a user experience flow chart (UX Flow Chart)

Next up in our web and mobile development tutorial series, here we'll examine the process of moving from a User Interface Spec to the construction of a flow chart that describes the detailed user experience (UX) through the app. This is where the engineer(s) and creative(s) must work closely together to decide what kind of software tools can best support the intended interfaces and click/swipe behavior, down to every last tab, tooltip, lightbox, icon, etc…
Will Little

Jan 2, 2013
Software Development JavaScript

Step-by-step “Hello World” examples in JSON, Eco, and Backbone.js

Moving along from Part 2 of this 3-part “Hello World” mini-series within our our web and mobile development tutorials, here we'll walk through JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), embedded CoffeeScript (Eco), and Backbone.js. If you have not yet completed steps 1–7 from Part 1 and steps 8–10 from Part 2, you should go back and do so now. If you have, great, let's continue: