Developers: What Not To Do

Filed in archive Management on April 20, 2006

Whenever I look at the code behind an existing application, that I did not write myself of course, I always find something I would have done differently. But who doesn't... it is the nature of what we do as developers? There are so many ways to solve a problem that things tend to get complicated and before you know it you've gone ahead and made a decision about how you are going to build something and the vultures (follow me now those vultures would be other developers) start circling.

If we didn't make these decisions, and some people tend to draw the process out for an agonizingly long time, your project starts to fall behind schedule. I don't think the Project Managers and Functional Managers realize it but a lot of time on a project is lost because people simply have a hard time deciding what tool or technique to use in order to address a problem. That might be hard to understand but following me here. The Opportunity Cost that exists with all the different languages, IDEs, databases, Operating Systems, Application Servers, design patterns, etc... tends to be a bit overwhelming for some people: "What if I choose the wrong one"! Answer: You would be ridiculed for years to come by future generations of programmers who are enlisted to maintain your application. Its a scary thing for some people to be put in that position.

My technique for deciding what to do is make the best decision possible with what I know at the time. Then tell myself that this is just a proof of concept and we'll "refactor" things later to optimize the application. This tends to work well with managers and other non-technical folks in meetings. Honestly, I have no idea if I will have time later to refactor later, but if history tells me anything I won't. I do the best I can and move on.

On a lighter note, and possibly a detractor to my previous paragraph here, I've started reading The Daily WTF. It is funny as hell sometimes and can be very technical. Hopefully, I won't see a post someday and say: "Hey wait a minute... I've done something like that before."