Hey guys!
Very quick post, and I’m guessing that most of us have gone through this as well.
Have you always thought that you could please everybody? Or are you still trying to do that? Especially just getting things to produce…?
I have news for you… if you are trying, just stop.
It’s not about the code alone. That code will eventually even become a mess!
And if you are a smart one, then sure, you may be smart, BUT! Try putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes when they begin to read your code and find that it’s just very, very, very hard to read. This somebody else could be one of your peers, otherwise it can also be your lead, or this person can play both roles…
And eventually, when you get into serious issues, your lead or boss will have a heat of frustration. I know that I was in this position once when I started out, and it didn’t end very well.
I was frustrated with all the mistakes I made. I wasn’t able to deal with stress very well. My performance became worse and even worse in each coming day. My comprehension also started to degrade. Eventually, I was let go of my contract.
Let’s get to the why all this happened.
I was a people-pleaser. It was more of putting in something that just will work for that time only. We would work with one code base that came from our own private server, and changes saved will reflect on the others’ IDEs once they do a refresh. It was really easy, or so I thought.
Then one day, my boss looked over the code that I wrote. It was all over the place. This was mainly because I didn’t think it through all too well.
This is why analysis of what’s been written before, especially what you are writing, is very important. Analysis of requirements before coding it is also important. That is the real programmer’s job.
After analysis, then achieving the result can be broken down into simple steps. In turn, this can make things a lot simpler than what was intended.
Therefore, team work is about a lot more than just coding 6 to 8 hours per day. So if you’re thinking of doing something, stop first and ask yourself the questions you need. If you need confirmation, ask the next best person about it. Now instead of spending a lot of time in code, you’re doing more by gathering what is required, and then trying to solve the coding problem. This also means less code, more results.
That’s all I have for now, let me know of thoughts. Until next time!
Brian.