Question

I’ve come across an article that discusses the issue of “code admiration”. Basically, the author talks about how developers should be more skeptic about code they write. How we may “admire” our code too much, attach our-self to it, making us more vulnerable to bugs and other mishaps that may be lying in front of us.

How do you feel about this issue? And do you have more tips on how to avoid/be more aware of this issue?

Answer 1

Some years ago, I was working with another on a small “hobby” project, and I realised that we had to re-assess things. We had written lots of code but it wasn’t all good code.

We didn’t really want to “throw away” all the work we had put in. But I realised something: what mattered most was the amount of work we would need to put in from now on.

We couldn’t change the fact that we had already put so much work into the project, so the only way to minimise the total amount of work the project would need, would be to minimise the amount of work we hadn’t done yet.

Since that day, I have stopped being attached to my code. If I’m confident that throwing it away and starting from scratch means less work than keeping it and adapting it to my needs, then I’ll throw it away.