Good Enough?
Good Enough
Hi. My name is <withheld> and I have a coding problem. I’m an obsessive/compulsive programmer. For every feature request, I can think of 5, No 10! (so-called) improvements.
You say you need a knife to cut a tomato. I think Swiss Army knife with a saw, scissors, tweezers, multiple screwdrivers, leather reamer (yes I’ve actually used it for its intended purpose), can/bottle openers (including wine) and oh yeah a couple blade that could cut up your boring tomato.
Am I thinking ahead?
Am I simply showing off?
Am I getting my nerd on?
Am I ignoring the needs of my users so I can mentally masturbate?
Is there any real difference in any of these questions?
Let the war in my head begin…
Yes. I mean, No! I’d never do that. Well, maybe I would. But it’s cool.
So how does it end?
How do I find the disciple to develop a widget that is good enough without anything extra?
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I keep a collection of books on the headboard. I just finished Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. I’m working on Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin , Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns: With Examples in C# and .NET by Jimmy Nilsson and
Solid Code by Donis Marshall and John Bruno. And that is just a portion of what is sitting on the headboard. I should pick up Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software.
So my obsession has coagulated in this topic: writing cleaner code. But when does it end? When is it all good enough?
It used to be “getting it to work” was enough. Now, nothing is ever good enough. I look back at old code and cringe. “Did I really write that crap?” “Yup. Bask in the glow buddy! You own that rotten stench.” I suppose it isn’t that bad, but there are some days when I just have to walk out of my home/office and stare at goldfish swimming in the pond. I want to write perfect code. I want to do the best that I possibly can. I want to find code that makes sense years after I originally wrote it.
When will it ever end?
So what was today’s metaphysical trigger? Three things converged. 1) One of my co-workers rotated out. Contractors have limited length contracts here at the worlds largest chip maker. 12 months in 18. So he was nearing him limit and decided to pick the day of his departure rather than the reverse. 2) My team lead and I had a discussion about me being converted over to permanent. Officially, there is a hiring freeze, but there may be a loophole. I could possibly be hired by IT as flex staff then get immediately farmed out to the team that I work for now. I’d be a ‘floater’ within the company, but permanent staff with all of those perks. (Not sure if I want to be perm and definitely not holding my breath that a good offer is in the works. I’m too jaded to believe. ) 3) I read this article by Bruce Sterling on Wired last week.
