Who Cares How We Code?

The Premise

As developers, we’re a smart bunch. We know our stuff and can generally be trusted to choose the best approach to getting the job done, right? After all, the goal is to get that program up and running in production as quickly as possible. What could possibly go wrong if we cut a few corners here and there? A bit of spaghetti code never hurt anyone. And technical debt is a conscious and intentional choice, yes?

The Bitter Truth

Sadly, this cavalier attitude towards development practices is a recipe for disaster further down the line. While it may seem like a shortcut to production Heaven, it’s more akin to paving the way to Maintenance Hell – and Future Costs City. Let’s explore why we might choose to actually care about how we code.

Compromising Schedule Predictability

Messy codebases compromise team’s ability to predict how long something is going to take. The more the mess, the more unreliable the schedule.

The Future Payback Trap

We can compare writing sloppy, unmaintainable code as analogous to racking up maxed-out credit cards. It’s taking on inevitable future payback down the line, and just like financial debt, it accrues “interest” in the form of extra development costs that compound over time. That once-scrappy codebase becomes an ungovernable mess that’s exponentially harder to change, optimise, or extend. Before we know it, we’re spending more time untangling our own spaghettic nightmares than making meaningful progress.

The Collaboration Conundrum

In most cases, a codebase is a team effort across its lifetime. If you don’t maintain a minimum level of quality, good luck onboarding new team members or even having your future self make sense of the tangle a few months down the road. Sloppy code breeds knowledge silos and cripples effective collaboration.

The Debugging Debacle

Well-structured, self-documenting code that follows good architectural principles makes it infinitely easier to debug issues and safely update the software over time. In contrast, a patched-together “codic dervish” is virtually impossible to decipher or modify without potentially disastrous unintended consequences.

The Performance Pitfall

While your hacky script may seem to work for that small prototype or MVP, codebases that cut corners on fundamental coding practices and design patterns simply won’t be able to scale gracefully as usage and complexity grow over time. Code quality is paramount for managing performance under load.

The Futility of Quality Assurance

When we don’t make code quality a priority from the get-go, good luck getting meaningful code reviews or implementing a robust quality assurance approach. Code reviews become an exercise in futility, and QA turns into a fruitless game of DevOps whack-a-mole, constantly putting out fires in an inherently unstable, unpredictable product.

The Craftsmanship Principle

At the end of the day, consistently writing clean, maintainable code is one of the hallmarks of competence, as opposed to a mere hack. By treating our craft with care and prioritising technical excellence, we’re investing in the long-term success of our products, our teams, and our careers. But who cares about the long term?