Asana

Application and Data: Since my personal website ( https://alisoueidan.com ) is a SPA I've chosen to use Vue.js, as a framework to create it. After a short skeptical phase I immediately felt in love with the single file component concept! I also used vuex for state management, which makes working with several components, which are communicating with each other even more fun and convenient to use. Of course, using Vue requires using JavaScript as well, since it is the basis of it.

For markup and style, I used Pug and Sass, since they’re the perfect match to me. I love the clean and strict syntax of both of them and even more that their structure is almost similar. Also, both of them come with an expanded functionality such as mixins, loops and so on related to their “siblings” (HTML and CSS). Both of them require nesting and prevent untidy code, which can be a huge advantage when working in teams. I used JSON to store data (since the data quantity on my website is moderate) – JSON works also good in combo with Pug, using for loops, based on the JSON Objects for example.

To send my contact form I used PHP, since sending emails using PHP is still relatively convenient, simple and easy done.

DevOps: Of course, I used Git to do my version management (which I even do in smaller projects like my website just have an additional backup of my code). On top of that I used GitHub since it now supports private repository for free accounts (which I am using for my own). I use Babel to use ES6 functionality such as arrow functions and so on, and still don’t losing cross browser compatibility.

Side note: I used npm for package management. 🎉

*Business Tools: * I use Asana to organize my project. This is a big advantage to me, even if I work alone, since “private” projects can get interrupted for some time. By using Asana I still know (even after month of not touching a project) what I’ve done, on which task I was at last working on and what still is to do. Working in Teams (for enterprise I’d take on Jira instead) of course Asana is a Tool which I really love to use as well. All the graphics on my website are SVG which I have created with Adobe Illustrator and adjusted within the SVG code or by using JavaScript or CSS (SASS).

I'm routinely frustrated by Asana because it's clearly a tool created by designers, imposed on developers.

• No integration with code repositories.
  • No task numbers
  • You can't reference a ticket in a commit and expect any feedback in Asana
  • You certainly can't close a ticket with a commit.
  • There's no link between CI progress and a ticket.
• No Markdown support (you can't even put links on text!)
• Boards and task lists aren't linked.
• It suppresses middle-click so you can't open more than one ticket at once.
• It logs every last change to things like assignments, but then folds up the conversation to suppress past comments.

Here's what it does have:

• Pretty backgrounds
• Cute little creatures that appear at random

This is not a tool for engineering. Please don't force your nerds to use it.

I use Laravel because it's the most advances PHP framework out there, easy to maintain, easy to upgrade and most of all : easy to get a handle on, and to follow every new technology ! PhpStorm is our main software to code, as of simplicity and full range of tools for a modern application.

Google Analytics Analytics of course for a tailored analytics, Bulma as an innovative CSS framework, coupled with our Sass (Scss) pre-processor.

As of more basic stuff, we use HTML5, JavaScript (but with Vue.js too) and Webpack to handle the generation of all this.

To deploy, we set up Buddy to easily send the updates on our nginx / Ubuntu server, where it will connect to our GitHub Git private repository, pull and do all the operations needed with Deployer .

CloudFlare ensure the rapidity of distribution of our content, and Let's Encrypt the https certificate that is more than necessary when we'll want to sell some products with our Stripe api calls.

Asana is here to let us list all the functionalities, possibilities and ideas we want to implement.

There are lots of project management tools available nowadays. The choice ended up between Trello and Basecamp. Asana , JIRA and monday.com got a fair review but they didn't make it to the final list for several reasons (either way to complex or some UX issues or just too many options - good in some cases but not a good fit in this case).

Between Basecamp and Trello the battle was between ease of use and price. Basecamp packs a great set of features and if you are ready to move to an all in one solution: chat, file storage, and a PM tool, then @basecanp is by far the right choice. But since all the features are within one package that cannot be customized, moving to Basecamp but only using a part of the tool feels.. well.. not right. On the other hand Trello has the #kanban format that is just too easy to use and the price point for small and midsize team that no one can beat.

At the end, all solutions have a good fit in some cases. A better fit. But I think Trello can do the job in any case - it can fit with any scenario.

I use Asana because

• I use for daily tasks and memos
• It's really easy to use even on mobile (mostly using on iPhone btw)
• It has nice GUI
• It can be integrated to Spark, my mail client I use instead of Safari
• I'm using a lot instagantt+ plugin to visualise task flow (so well understood by biz people)
• and it's free of charge

The missing functionality is:

• markdown support (that's why use a lot dropbox paper) for detailed work
• source code friendly template or dedicated space
• integration with repositories

However, as Freelancer, mostly leading large implementations and projects right now, Asana works best for no extra cost.

I use Trello, the macOS app for my personal projects and Google Chrome for work. At work, I have 7-8 active boards for various projects.

At first, I wasn't sure about Trello. The last company I worked at used Asana and I was really used to that. Before then I was using Jira. Now I ❤️Trello. It is amazing. Power-Ups™️ are so awesome!

For personal projects, I have used it for planning a move across town. I'm also using it for my Wedding. I got my fiancè almost loving it too.