Development
Vue development and takeover
Vue had a long run as the pragmatic choice in Danish web teams, which means there are a lot of Vue applications quietly running businesses whose original developer has moved on. Taking those over, getting them upgradable again, and continuing to build on them is work I do regularly.
When this makes sense
- You inherited a Vue application and nobody currently employed has read it
- It is on Vue 2, which has been end-of-life since the end of 2023, and the upgrade keeps getting deferred
- Small changes take far longer than they should, and nobody can say why
How it works
- 01
Read it
I go through the code, the build setup and the dependencies, and hand back a written picture of what you own — including the parts that will bite later.
- 02
Make it safe
Get it building reproducibly, get the dependencies to a supported version, and put tests around whatever would be catastrophic to break. In that order.
- 03
Keep going
Then the features. By the project, or by the month if the codebase needs someone permanently attached to it.
What the work covers
- Vue 2 to Vue 3 migration, done in stages rather than as one weekend rewrite
- Dependency and build-tooling upgrades, including the move off deprecated tooling
- Continued feature work on an existing application
- Written documentation of what you own, which is often the thing that was actually missing
Common questions
- What does it cost to take over a Vue application?
- It starts with a technical review at DKK 6,000 (10 hours), because quoting a migration on code nobody has read is guesswork with a number attached. After that it is either project work from DKK 48,000 or a monthly arrangement from DKK 12,000, and you get the figure before anything begins.
- We are still on Vue 2. How bad is that?
- It stopped receiving updates at the end of 2023, so it is a security question rather than a style question — but it is not an emergency in most cases, and anyone telling you to rewrite from scratch is selling a rewrite. Vue 3 migration is usually incremental, and the honest first step is finding out how much of your code depends on the parts that actually changed.
- Nobody documented it. Is that a problem?
- It is the normal situation, not a special one. Reading undocumented code is a skill rather than an obstacle, and the written picture you get back at the end of a review is frequently the most valuable part of the engagement — it is the thing that stops you being dependent on any one person, me included.
- Should we move it to React?
- Usually no. A working Vue application rewritten in React is months of spending to arrive back where you started, with new bugs. Vue 3 is actively maintained and perfectly good. The honest reasons to move are hiring — if you genuinely cannot find Vue people — or a fundamental architectural need, and neither is as common as the people proposing rewrites suggest.
- Can you maintain it going forward?
- Yes. That is the development partner arrangement from DKK 12,000 a month: you keep a ranked list, I take the top item and finish it before starting the next, with one month's notice and no lock-in.
Other stacks I work in
Not sure which one to pick?
Send a couple of lines about what you are trying to achieve. You get a reply within 24 hours, and an honest yes or no.