standalone cheap hardware principle = development principle you should apply every-time at any cost and how

Dev principle: 
Been able to develop in standalone mode on cheap hardware is a hard requirement

Why? To be efficient, you need simplicity (their is always a layer of abstraction who breaks like: internet, vpn, remote desktop, grid, file server, wiki, hardware, ....

How?

• Split data/code dependency (need to work on a grid, cloud or supercomputer)
• add small testing dataset to your code base
• Data dependency should be avoided at any cost

But I need access to my data on a file server and can't mount it?

1. commit small anonymised data (MAT: Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit) or
2. transfer file:
1. scp @machine:/somewhere/abc.txt .
2. rsync @machine:/somewhere/abc.txt .
3. Use sshfs (warning: recommended for browsing & not recommended if you need to access lot of data from use scp or rsync instead)
• use your favorite linux distribution like ubuntu
• You are stuck on window, use a virtualbox
• apt-get install sshfs
• sshfs @machine:/somewhere somewhere -o sftp_server=/usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server

Enjoy working a a cheap unconnected hardware and be so much more efficient (time is your biggest asset). Its a win/win for you and your company.